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THE 


Massachusetts  Election  Sermons 


an  €^mv 


IN 


DESCRIPTIVE    BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BY    LINDSAY    SWIFT 


REPRINTED   FROM 

THE   PUBLICATIONS 

OF 

Clje  Colonial  J>ociftp  of  ^a&&uc}^u&m& 
Vol.  I. 


CAMBRIDGE 
JOHN    WILSON    AND    SON 

©ntbcrsitg  ^rrss 
1897 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


I  CO  CcrhjUL6  (aAx^bct 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


NOTE. 

Since  this  Essay  was  printed  in  the  Transactions  of  The 
Colonial  Society  of  Massachusetts,  Mr.  Abner  C.  Goodell, 
Jr.,  has  informed  me  that  the  indictments  against  Philip 
English  charge  an  offence  committed  after  the  date  of 
Moody's  sermon,  and  that  Bentley's  statements  (p.  20,  post) 
must  be  taken  with  plenty  of  salt.  To  the  same  competent 
authority  I  am  indebted  for  the  further  information  that 
John  Rogers  of  Ipswich  and  the  "  Rev.  Mr.  Rogers  of  Box- 
ford  "  were  not  the  two  persons  whose  pamphlets  were 
ordered  by  the  General  Court  to  be  burned  (p.  29,  j)*^^^)- 
The  eccentric  two  John  Rogerses  —  father  and  son  —  were 
from   New  London,  Connecticut.     (Province    Laws,    YIII., 

155,  555.)     Unhappily,  I  followed  Sibley. 

L.  S. 

Boston,  4  March,  1897. 


THE   MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

On  Wednesday,  7  January,  1885,  the  General  Court  of  Massa- 
chusetts met  to  organize ;  the  two  branches  of  the  Legishiture 
chose  their  presiding  and  other  officers,  and  then  adjourned  to  the 
next  day.  In  obedience  to  an  Act  passed,  on  6  March,  188-1,  "  To 
repeal  the  Public  Statutes  relating  to  the  Annual  Election  Ser- 
mon," ^  there  was  omitted  from  the  ceremonies  incident  to  the  day 
an  ancient  custom,  without  the  observance  of  which  the  legislators 
of  earlier  days  would  not  have  had  the  temerity  to  begin  their 
public  duties.  For  some  years  previously,  the  delivery  of  the  ser- 
mon had  been  tacitly  acknowledged  to  have  been  persevered  in 
more  through  respect  for  honorable  precedent  than  as  a  sincere 
expression  of  the  religious  and  political  spirit  of  the  age ;  accord- 
ingly tliis  last  slight  interdependence  in  the  Commonwealth 
between  Church  and  State  had  few  to  mourn  its  extinction,  with 
the  exception  perhaps  of  some  persistent  admirers  of  the  teiiipus 
actum. 

In  common  with  all  that  falls  into  disuse,  the  Election  Sermon 
will  soon  survive  only  in  the  memory  of  a  few,  and  therefore  an 
attempt  is  here  made  to  collect  whatever  may  prove  of  popular 
or  antiquarian  interest  concerning  so  venerable  an  observance. 
Listening  to  sermons  is  not  infrequently  dry  work,  and  reading 
about  sermons  may  be  still  drier ;  notwithstanding  tliis,  the  pres- 
ent subject  is  so  interwoven  with  the  literature  and  the  political 
concerns  of  Massachusetts  during  its  entire  history  as  Colony, 
Province,  Colony,  State,  and  Commonwealth,  that  it  cannot  be 
devoid  of  value,  though  the  narrative  may  be  arid  indeed.  Macau- 
lay  once  said  that  nobody  had  ever  read  the  whole  of  the  "•  Faerie 
Queene ;  "  since  tliis  statement  many,  tlu-ough  sheer  persistency, 
^  Acts  and  Resolves,  1884,  chap.  60. 


6  THE   MASSACHUSETTS    ELECTION   SERjMONS. 

have  pushed  through  that  meritorious  but  extended  poem,  as  if  it 
were  a  sort  of  feat  which  they  had  been  dared  to  perform.  Will 
any  one  take  the  assertion  as  a  challenge,  when  I  admit  that  I  have 
read  with  more  or  less  care  every  one  of  these  sermons  known  to 
have  been  printed  —  more  than  two  huncbed  in  number  ?  In  all 
probability  the  Rev.  John  Pierce  and  the  late  Mr.  John  Wingate 
Thornton  were  conversant  with  the  contents  of  most  of  these  dis- 
courses. Both  were  collectors  of  Election  Sermons,  and  to  them, 
as  well  as  to  others  who  have  taken  an  interest  in  this  subject,  due 
acknowledgment  will  be  made. 

What,  then,  was  the  Annual  Election  Sermon,  so  dear  to  the 
past,  yet  abolished  in  a  fit  of  spleen,  as  it  were,  after  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  of  observance  ? 

Precisely  how  this  custom  originated  will  probably  never  be 
known.  The  Massachusetts  Colony  Records  and  Winthrop's  Jour- 
nal are  all  the  sources  of  information  which  we  have,  or  are  likely 
to  have,  and  the  memoranda  therein  contained  are  scant.  It  is, 
however,  certain  that  there  was  no  sermon  between  1628  and  1630, 
for  the  patent  and  government  of  the  Plantation  were  not  trans- 
ferred to  America  until  1630,  when  the  Records  of  the  Governor 
and  Company  begin. ^  Although  the  Assistants  and  Deputies  met 
for  election,  as  by  charter  appointed,  as  early  as  1630,  there  is  no 
mention  of  any  attendant  religious  ceremony  until  1634.  Thorn- 
ton says :  "  The  origin  of  tliis  anniversary  is  to  be  found  in  the 
charter  .  .  .  which  provided  that  '  one  governor,  one  deputy- 
governor,  and  eighteen  assistants,  and  all  other  officers  of  the  said 
companie,'  —  not  of  the  colony,  —  should  be  chosen  in  their  'gen- 
eral court,  or  assemblie,'  on  '  the  last  Wednesday  in  Easter  Terme, 
yearely,  for  the  yeare  ensuing.'  "  ^  On  14  May,  1634,  the  General 
Court  assembled.  Jolin  Winthrop  had  been  chosen  Governor  up  to 
this  time,  and  it  was  now  thought  that  possibly  his  re-election  was 
in  danger.  John  Cotton  accordingly  preached  a  political  sermon, 
urging  strongly  that  Wintlirop  should  again  be  chosen.  Whether 
his  hearers  did  not  relish  a  minister's  interference  with  politics,  or 
whether  at  that  early  day  C.iesarism  was  felt  to  be  a  menace,  Mr. 
Cotton's  effort  failed  of  its  desired  result,  and  Thomas  Dudley  was 
chosen  Governor.     Although  this  effort  of  Cotton's  may  be  con- 

1  Massachusetts  Colony  Records,  i.  73. 

2  Thornton's  Pulpit  of  the  American  Revolution,  p.  xxiii. 


THE   MASSACHUSETTS  ELECTION   SERMONS.  7 

siJered  to  have  been  a  regular  Election  Sermon,  it  would  appear 
that  it  was  preached  before  the  votes  were  thrown,  whereas  the 
sermon  was  usually  delivered  after  the  choice  was  made,  and  was 
addressed  to  the  outgoing  administration. 

Cotton  Mather,  who  calls  Cotton  a  "  walking  library,"  says : 
"  The  good  Spirit  of  God,  by  that  Sermon,  had  a  mighty  Influence 
upon  all  Ranks  of  Men,  in  the  Infant  Plantation ;  who  from  this 
time  carried  on  their  Affairs,  with  a  new  Life,  Satisfaction,  and 
Unanimity."  ^  Hutchinson  speaks  of  the  sermon  (but  by  mistake 
putting  it  a  year  later)  as  one  which  "  carried  the  point  against 
the  plebeians,"  that  is,  the  Deputies,  who  were  in  favor  of  the 
removal  of  Hooker  to  Connecticut.^ 

Mr.  Henry  H.  Edes,  without  the  help  of  whose  list  of  Election 
Sermons,  published  in  1871  in  connection  with  Grinnell's  sermon 
for  that  year,  I  should  never  have  made  my  present  attempt,  is 
probably  mistaken  in  giving  the  text  of  Cotton's  May  sermon  as 
Haggai  ii.  4.  On  24  August  of  the  same  year,  however,  Cotton 
did  preach  from  that  text,  to  the  evident  gratification  of  Winthrop 
and  the  Court.^ 

1  have  described  at  some  length  the  inauguration  of  the  custom 
by  Cotton ;  it  was  henceforth  continued,  as  the  Rev.  Albert 
Barnes  writes,  in  "  a  belief  that  religion  and  law  were  closely 
connected."  *  Inasmuch  as  the  compilers  of  previous  lists  of 
the  Election  Sermons  have  not  sought  to  describe  the  earlier  dis- 
courses, but  have  furnished  only  the  names  of  the  preachers,  their 
residences,  the  colleges  at  which  they  graduated,  and  the  texts  of 
their  sermons,  I  shall  make  no  apology  for  entering  somewhat 
fully  into  the  early  history  of  this  subject,  especially  since  I  am 
really  breaking  new  ground,  no  effort  having  until  now  been  made, 
in  print,  to  discover  what  sermons  were  actually  delivered  and 
printed,  and  what  delivered  and  not  printed. 

^  Magnalia  (edition  of  1702),  Book  iii.  p.  21.  IMather  may  refer  here  to  the 
sermon  which  Cotton  preached  on  24  August. 

2  History  of  Massachusetts  Bay  (edition  of  1764),  i.  45. 
8  Winthrop's  Journal  (edition  of  1853),  i.  168. 

*  See  "  Election  Sermons,"  a  disappointing  article,  by  Barnes  in  the 
"  Christian  Spectator,"  vol.  x.  It  is  merely  a  review  of  some  Connecticut 
and  New  Hampshire  sermons,  in  which  the  reverend  reviewer  finds  "  an  occa- 
sion for  offering  some  considerations  on  the  influence  of  relifrion  and  law." 


8  THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

If  there  were  sermons  in  1635  and  1636,  we  have  no  record  of 
them.  In  1637,  Thomas  Shepard,  whom  Captain  Edward  Johnson, 
in  his  "Wonder-working  Providence,"  calls  "that  "gratious  sweete 
Heavenly  minded,  and  soule-ravishiug  Minister,"  ^  is  known  to 
have  preached,  but  from  what  text  has  not  been  ascertained.  The 
Rev.  John  Wheelwright  had  just  been  adjudged  guilty  of  sedition 
for  inveigliing,  at  last  Fast,  "  against  all  that  walked  in  a  covenant 
of  works."  ^  Preaching  before  the  conflicting  factions  in  this 
affair,  Shepard,  "  at  the  day  of  election,  brought  them  j^et  nearer, 
so  as,  except  men  of  good  understancUng,  and  such  as  knew  the 
bottom  of  the  tenents  of  those  of  the  other  party,  few  could  see 
where  the  difference  was."  ^ 

We  must  infer  that  Shepard's  preaching  was  both  powerful  and 
convincing  from  an  incident  which  Winthrop  mentions  of  one 
Turner  of  Charlestown  who  was  so  "  wounded  in  conscience  "  at  a 
sermon  by  Shepard  that  he  "  disowned  himself  in  a  little  pit  where 
was  not  above  two  feet  water."  ^  The  next  year,  1638,  Shepard 
preached  again,  and  this  sermon  is  the  first  of  which  we  have  any- 
thing like  a  full  text.  By  one  of  those  happy  discoveries  which 
sometimes  gladden  the  historian's  heart,  Mr.  John  Ward  Dean  was 
so  fortunate  as  to  fall  upon  a  skeleton  of  this  interesting  dis- 
course, in  manuscript,  which  he  published  in  October,  1870.^  Both 
Mr.  Dean  and  Mr.  Edes  give  satisfactory  accounts  of  it.  It  was 
preached  a  year  after  the  defeat  of  Vane  and  his  party,  and  the 
text  "  Then  sayd  all  the  trees  to  the  Bramble  raine  ouer  vs  "  ^  indi- 
cates plainly  the  line  of  thought.  Shepard  speaks  of  the  "  mul- 
titude "  choosing  a  bad  governor,  and  advises  "  W"^  brambles  do 
appeare  call  for  hatchets  do  not  deale  gently  it  will  prick  you." 
The  conservatism  of  the  clergy  had  begun  to  show  itself  in  such 
a  sermon  as  this,  which  attests  the  truth  of  what  Samuel  Stone 
("  Doctor  irrefragabiles,"  Cotton  Mather  must  add)  said  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  Congregationalism,  that  "  it  was  a  speaking  Aristocracy 
in  the  Face  of  a  silent  Democracy."  "  This  Democracy  was,  how- 
ever, soon  to  become  audible  even  in  regard  to  these  very  Election 
Sermons. 

^  Johnson's  Wonder-working  Providence  (Poole's  edition,  1867),  p.  77. 
•^  Winthrop's  Journal,  i.  256.  »  /^(f/.  i.  264.  *  Ibid.  ii.  73. 

*  New  England  Historical  and  Genealogical  Register,  xxiv.  361-366. 

*  Judges,  ix.  14,  15.  '  Magnalia,  Book  iii.  p.  118. 


THE  ]VIASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  9 

To  return  a  moment  to  Shepard's  sermon.  It  is  noteworthy  that 
Ezra  Stiles,  in  a  letter  to  Hutchinson,  writes,  "  I  have  also  a  copy 
of  the  Election  Sermon  preached  by  the  minister  of  Cambridge,  I 
think,  Mr.  Shepard,  when  Mr.  Vane  was  dropped."  ^  Mr.  J.  Ham- 
mond Trumbull  is  of  the  opinion  that  the  manuscript  from  which 
President  Stiles's  copy  was  extracted  was  probably  written  out 
from  the  short-hand  notes  of  some  hearer.  Mr.  Dean  believes  it 
possible  that  the  sermon  may  have  been  preached  the  day  after  the 
Court  met. 

The  preachers  for  1639  and  1640  are  not  known. 

Although  the  Magistrates  and  the  Deputies  still  sat  together, 
and  continued  to  do  so  until  1644,  there  are  already  evidences 
of  misunderstandings.  An  increasing  friction  is  plainly  discover- 
able in  Winthrop's  ample  account  of  Nathaniel  Ward's  sermon  for 
1641.2  Ward  was  the  famous  Simple  Cobbler  of  Agawam  who 
drew  up  the  "  Body  of  Liberties,"  ^  and  espoused  the  popular  side 
as  his  sermon  plainly  shows. 

Barry  draws  largely  upon  Wintlirop  regarding  Ward's  sermon  in 
1641,  and  Rogers's  in  1643,  to  show  that  the  colonists  were  by  this 
time  "  a  race  of  politicians."  "  As  in  the  army  of  Xenophon,  so 
in  Massachusetts,  boundless  liberty  of  speech  was  indulged ;  and 
the  magistrates  and  the  clergy  .  .  .  were  as  earnest  as  any."  * 

No  sermon  is  known  to  have  been  preached  in  1642  ;  perhaps 
the  town  of  Boston  was  in  too  excitable  a  condition  to  listen,  for 
its  public  temper  had  now  waxed  warm  over  the  famous  '  Sow 
business,'  —  a  mighty  matter  in  its  day.  The  supposed  unlawful 
seizure  of  a  stray  sow,  by  Captain  Robert  Keajme,  later  the  town's 
benefactor,  from  the  keeping  of  a  poor  woman,  served  to  widen 
the  division  between  plebeians  and  patricians.  We  may  fairly 
infer,  then,  that  in  his  Election  Sermon  for  1643,  Ezekiel  Rogers 
of  Rowley  was  fostering  that  "  democratical  spirit  which  acts  our 
deputies,"^  when  he  earnestly  sought  to  dissuade  them  from  re- 
electing the  good  Winthrop. 

1  New  England  Historical  and  Genealogical  Register,  xxvi.  162. 

2  Winthrop's  Journal,  ii.  42  ;  quoted  also  in  LecMord's  Plain  Dealing  (Trum- 
bull's edition),  p.  68. 

8  Printed  in  3  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,  viii.  101. 
*  History  of  Massachusetts,  i.  329-332. 
^  Winthrop's  Journal,  ii.  1-41. 


10  THE   IMASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

Cotton  Mather  may  have  had  Rogers's  sermon  in  mind  when  he 
said  that  "  Sermons  were  Preached  at  the  Anniversary  Court  of 
Election,  to  disswade  the  Freemen  from  chasing  One  Man  Twice 
together."  ^ 

Although  Rogers's  appeal  was  unsuccessful  (for  Winthrop  was 
again  elected),  yet  he  had  shown  that  he  stood  for  the  claimant 
of  the  sow,  one  Sherman's  wife,  as  against  Captain  Keayne,  who 
was  "accounted  a  rich  man,  and  she  a  poor  woman."  This  all 
may  seem  trivial  now,  but  it  was  not  so  in  fact,  and  the  sermon 
was  important  on  this  account  alone ;  at  least  Cotton  Mather 
seemed  to  think  so,  when  he  wrote,  "  though  the  Occasion  and  the 
Auditory  were  Greats  yet  he  shew'd  his  Abilities  to  be  Greater ; 
insomuch,  that  he  became  famous  through  the  whole  Country."  ^ 

In  the  "  Massachusetts  Colony  Records  "  is  an  interesting  entry 
relating  to  the  year  1643-4 :  "  M'^  Madder  to  bee  desired  to  ppare 
himselfe  to  pach  to  y^  assembly  at  y^  next  Co'^t  of  Election."  ^  A 
little  further  is  a  still  more  interesting  minute  :  "  It  is  ordered, 
the  printer  shall  have  leave  to  print  the  election  sermon,  w*^  M' 
Mathers  consent,  &  the  artillery  sermon,  w'^  M'"  Nortons  consent."* 

This  "  Mr.  Madder "  was  of  course,  Richard,  grandfather  of 
Cotton  Mather,  who  calls  him  one  of  the  "  angelical  men,"  or,  ana- 
grammatically,  "a  third  charmer."  Curiously  enough,  the  pedantic 
grandson  praises  Richard  Mather  for  a  chariness  of  "  Citation  of 
Latine  Sentences."  Cotton  Mather,  in  liis  sermon  on  Higginson 
in  1709,  calls  John  Higginson's  sermon  for  1663  the  "  First-Born 
by  the  way  of  the  Press,  of  all  the  Election  Sermons  that  we  have 
in  our  Libraries  ;  "  thus  showing  that  he  did  not  know  that  Richard 
Mather's  sermon  was  printed,  if  indeed  it  ever  was.  ^ 

Permission  by  the  Court  to  print  was  not  a  simple  act  of 
courtesy,  for  it  is  well  understood  that  there  was  a  censorship  of 
the  press  ;  even  as  late  as  1669  the  printing  of  Thomas  a  Kempis's 
"  De  Imitatione "  was  inhibited,  that  work  being  written  by  a 
"  Popish  minister  ;  "  ^  and  I  have  noted  that  Shepard's  sermon  in 
1672  bears  the  imprimatur  of  Urian  Oakes  and  John  Sherman. 

1  Magnalia,  Book  ii.  p.  10.  2  /j,-^.  Book  iii.  p.  102. 

8  ]Massachusetts  Colony  Records,  ii.  62.  ■*  Ibid.  ii.  71. 

^  See  note  by  Dr.  George  II.  Moore  in  Historical  JNIagazine,  February,  1867, 
p.  116. 

^  Massachusetts  Colony  Records,  iv.  Part  ii.  p.  424. 


THE   IMASSACHUSETTS    ELECTION   SERMONS.  11 

Furthermore  the  expense  of  printing  was  probably  not  borne  by  the 
public.  This  was  the  opinion  of  the  late  Dr.  George  H.  Moore,i 
who  seemed  to  know  of  evidence  extant  "  that  the  painful  preacher 
had  to  depend  upon  the  liberality  of  some  of  the  pious  '  persons  of 
worth '  for  the  preservation  of  his  sermons  in  type."  Printed  or 
not,  Mather's  sermon  is  in  all  probability  lost  to  us. 

The  old  trouble  between  the  Magistrates  and  Deputies  broke  out 
again,  and  more  violently,  in  1645.  Barry  says,  "  The  most  excit- 
ing discussions,  however,  were  between  the  Magistrates  and  the 
Deputies.  One  of  these  related  to  the  appointment  of  the  coui-t 
preachers.  At  first,  such  appointments  were  made  by  the  Assistr 
ants ;  but  when  the  House  of  Deputies  was  established,  they 
claimed  the  appointing  power."  ^  The  importance  attached  by 
contemporaries  to  a  matter  apparently  so  simple  as  the  choice  of 
an  election  preacher,  is  shown  by  the  space  given  by  Winthroj)  in 
his  Journal  to  the  dispute  between  the  Dej)uties,  who  had  chosen 
Mr.  Norton,  and  the  Magistrates  and  Governor,  who  had  chosen 
Mr.  Norris  of  Salem.3 

Mr.  Norton,  the  choice  of  the  popular  body,  did  preach,  no  doubt 
to  the  sorrow  of  men  like  Wintlu-op,  who  may  at  this  juncture  have 
felt  with  Richard  Saltonstall  that  such  things  were  a  "  sinful  inno- 
vation." The  result  of  all  this  trouble  was  that,  beginning  with 
the  year  1646,  the  preachers  were  chosen  on  alternate  years  by 
the  Magistrates  and  Deputies.  It  appears  that  Edward  Norris  of 
Salem,  the  choice  of  the  magistrates  under  the  new  arrangement, 
preached,  and  that  the  Court  was  "  carried  on  with  much  peace 
and  good  correspondency ;  and  when  the  business  was  near  ended, 
the  magistrates  and  deputies  met,  and  concluded  what  remained, 
and  so  departed  in  much  love."  ^  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
Winthrop's  accuracy,  but  it  is  worth  noting  that,  according  to  the 
Colony  Records,  Nathaniel  Rogers  was  chosen  by  the  Deputies.^ 
I  am  inclined  to  think,  and  I  believe  it  was  the  opinion  of  Dr. 

1  Manuscript  note  now  in  Boston  Public  Library. 

2  History  of  Massachusetts,  i.  331. 

8  Winthrop's  Journal,  ii.  268.  *  Ibid.  ii.  316. 

6  Itt  being  the  time  &  turne  of  y  Depu"  for  to  choose  &  appointe  y'  ministe' 
to  p'each  the  se'nion  at  y  next  Cou'te  of  FJoccon,  they  chose  &  desired  1\1' 
Nathaniell  Roge's,  of  Ipswich,  to  p'each  y"  next  eleccon  sermon.  (Massachu- 
setts Colony  Records,  iii.  80.) 


12  THE  jyiASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

Moore,  that  Rogers  should  be  assigned  to  the  year  1647 ;  if  this 
supposition  is  correct,  a  blank  in  Mr.  Edes's  list  is  filled.  My 
reason  is,  of  coiu'se,  that  the  Magistrates  having,  without  question, 
had  their  choice  in  1646,  the  next  year's  choice  belonged  by  right 
to  the  Deputies. 

In  1648,  Zechariah  Symmes  of  Charlestown  preached,  and 
although  we  have  not  his  sermon,  the  loss  is  not,  in  this  busy 
age,  much  to  be  deplored,  for  Captain  Johnson  says  that  this 
remarkable  man  on  one  occasion  "  continued  in  preacliing  and 
prayer  about  the  space  of  four  or  five  houres."  ^  His  fecundity 
was  not  confined  to  the  pulpit,  for  he  was  the  father  of  thirteen 
children.  To  quote  Johnson  again,  he  was  a  "  reverend  and  pain- 
full minister,"  and  according  to  Mather,  "  a  Sufferer  for  what  he 
preach'd."  ^  Nor  has  the  sermon  of  Thomas  Cobbett,  who  preached 
in  1649,  survived.  Cobbett  was,  however,  requested  to  print.  "  Itt 
was  voted,  that  M''  Speaker,  in  the  name  of  the  Howse  of  Deputyes, 
should  render  M""  Cobbett  the  thankes  of  the  howse  for  his  worthy 
paines  in  his  sermon,  w"^,  at  the  desire  of  this  howse,  he  preached 
on  the  day  of  eleccon,  &  declare  to  him  it  is  their  desire  he  would 
print  it  heere  or  elsuhere."  ^ 

Between  the  years  1650  and  1655,  inclusive,  there  is  a  lament- 
able gap.  During  these  and  earlier  years,  it  is  probable  that  ser- 
mons were  delivered,  and  we  may  suppose  that  prominent  men 
were  chosen  to  preach.  During  the  last  years  of  the  observance 
of  this  custom,  ministers  not  always  of  the  fii'st  importance  were 
honored  by  an  invitation  to  preach,  but  in  the  early  days  no  infe- 
rior names  are  found  upon  the  list.  Jonathan  Mitchel  may  have 
preached  at  this  period.     Of  him  I  shall  speak  jiresently. 

In  1656,  "  M"".  Charles  Chauncey,  prsesident  of  Harvard  CoUedg, 
is  desired  to  preach  before  the  Gennerall  Court  on  the  next  elec- 
tion day."^  His  sermon  was  not,  I  think,  one  of  his  "printed 
composures." 

Although  he  had  been  the  "  people's  choice "  in  1645,  John 
Norton  again  preached  in  1657,^  and  for  the  third  time  in  1661. 

1  Johnson's  Wonder-working  Pi'ovidence,  p.  178. 

2  Magnalia,  Book  ii.  p.  131. 

3  Massachusetts  Colony  Records,  iii.  148.  *  Ibid.  iv.  Part  i.  254. 

s  In  a  copy  of  Oakes's  sermon  for  1673,  which  belonged  to  Samuel  Sewall, 
is  a  manuscript  memorandum,  which,  Sewall  says,  was  "  taken  out  of  Grand- 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  13 

It  is  a  misfortune  that  Jonathan  Mitchel's  sermon  for  1658  does 
not  exist,  for  we  are  assured  in  the  "  Magnalia  "  that  his  utterance 
has  a  "  becoming  tunableness  and  vivacity,"  although  his  sermons 
"smelt  of  the  lamp."  Mather  further  speaks  of  his  preaching  "  as 
a  very  lovely  song  of  one  that  hath  a  pleasant  Voice ;  "  but,  un- 
happily, we  learn  later  that  he  "soon  grew  extream  Fat."  ^  Sibley, 
in  his  "  Biographical  Sketches  of  Graduates  of  Harvard  Univer 
sity,"  does  not  mention  this  sermon  of  1658.  As  a  political  orator, 
Mitchel  must  be  judged  by  his  later  sermon  of  1667.  There  is  a 
possibility  that  he  may  have  preached  before  1657,  for  Mather 
says  "  His  Grmt  Worth  caused  him  to  be  called  forth  several 
times  with  an  Early  and  Special  Respect  from  the  General  Court 
of  the  Colony,  to  preach  on  the  Greatest  Solemnity  that  the 
Colony  afforded ;  Namely,  The  Anniversary  Election  of  Governour 
and  Magistrates.'"  ^  Potent,  indeed,  must  have  been  his  exhorting, 
if  the  lines  of  F[rancis  ?]  Drake  ^  are  to  be  taken  seriously :  — 

"  The  Quaker  trembling  at  his  Thunder  fled; 
And  with  Caligula  resum'd  his  Bed."  ^ 

John  Eliot  preached  in  1659 ;  this  fact  alone  is  all  that  seems 
to  be  known  of  his  sermon.  In  1660  Richard  Mather  again 
preached ;  and  although  there  is  no  direct  evidence  that  the  ser- 
mon was  printed,  yet  in  Mitchel's  sermon  for  1667  is  an  allusion 
to  it,  in  which  the  text  and  a  part  of  the  substance  are  quoted,  as 
follows :  — 

"  So  of  old  iu  the  Wilderness,  Psal.  11.  20.  Which  Text  of  Scrip- 
ture we  heard  well  improved  in  a  Sermon  on  the  like  occasion  now 
Seven  years  ago ;  wherein  it  was  said,  That  that  was  the  Thirtieth  year 
currant  that  God  had  given  us  godly  3Iagistrates  :  if  so,  this  is  the  Thirty 
seventh  year  currant,  wherein  we  have  enjoyed  that  mercy.    Whereupon 


father  Hull's  Character  Book  of  several  that  did  preach  the  Artillery  and  Elec- 
tion sermons,"  in  which  Mr.  Flint  is  set  down  as  preacher  in  1657,  and  Mr. 
Ward  as  preacher  in  1660.  Neither  of  these  names  seems  to  be  correct,  yet  this 
rnemorandum  as  a  whole,  no  doubt,  has  been  important  in  determining  some 
of  the  preachers.  It  is  in  the  Prince  collection,  now  in  the  Boston  Public 
Library. 

1  Magnalia,  Book  iv.  184.  2  jy,^i  x^^ok  iv.  182. 

8  I  have  been  unable  to  identify  this  "  F.  Drake,"  and  only  offer  the 
bracketed  name  as  a  suggestion. 

*  Magnalia,  Book  iv.  185. 


14  THE   IVIASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

it  was  then  solemnly  added  (by  that  Reverend  Servant  of  God  who  then 
Preached)  That  the  Sun  shines  not  upon  an  happier  people  than  we  are 
in  regard  of  this  mercy."  ^ 

This  close  following  of  Mather's  words  is  itself  good  reason  for 
supposing  that  Mitchel  either  saw  a  printed  or  a  manuscript  copy, 
or  else  that  he  possessed  an  excellent  memory  or  a  well-kept  diary. 

With  the  year  1660  end  the  dark  ages  of  the  Election  Sermon. 
During  twenty-seven  years,  163-4-1660  inclusive,  fifteen  sermons 
are  known  to  have  been  preached  by  twelve  different  persons, 
and  of  these  fifteen  not  one  is  known  to  have  been  printed,  al- 
though the  Cambridge  press  had  been  running  since  1610.  Two 
of  the  preachers,  we  are  sure,  were  asked  to  print ;  but  as  tliis 
seems  only  to  imply  that  the  printing  was  as  yet  a  private  venture, 
it  is  probable  that  it  was  not  undertaken  in  either  case. 

John  Norton's  "  Sion  the  Out-cast  healed  of  her  Wounds," 
preached  in  1661,  and  printed  in  his  "  Three  Choice  and  Profitable 
sermons "  (Cambridge,  1664),  was,  it  is  usual  to  say,  the  first 
Election  Sermon  which  was  printed.  While  it  was  first  in  the 
chronological  series  of  sermons  to  be  printed,  it  was  not  actually 
the  first  to  be  sent  to  the  j)ress.  That  distinction  belongs  to  John 
Higginson's  for  1663,  which  appeared  the  same  year  in  which  it 
was  delivered.  Norton's  effort  is  one  of  the  most  eccentric  of  the 
many  curious  productions  in  this  long  series.  He  himself  calls  it 
"  a  Divine  Plaister  for  a  Sin-sick  Out-cast ;"  ^  and,  carrying  out 
his  pathological  metaphor,  he  says,  "  God  will  apply  a  sanative 
Cataplasm,  an  healing  Plaster."  ^  As  in  the  case  of  the  probably 
accidental  "  dissemble  or  cloak,"  or  the  "  acknowledge  and  con- 
fess "  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  he  here  uses  pedantic  Latin 
and  common  English  in  parallelisms.  His  tropes  were  often 
pushed  to  the  extreme  limits  of  good  taste,  as  when  he  says  "  that 
Davids  tears  fall  into  Gods  bottle,  is  matter  of  joy."  ^  A  merit 
of  the  sermon,  not  common  to  most  of  its  kind  in  this  era,  is  its 
brevity. 

Nothing  is  known  of  the  sermon  for  1662. 

"  The  Cause  of  God  and  his  People  in  New-England,"  by  Hig- 
ginson,  also  a  meritoriously  brief  performance,  Avas  delivered  and 

1  Mitchel's  «  Nehemiah  on  the  Wall,"  p.  23. 

2  Norton's  "  Sion  the  Out-cast,"  p.  1.  »  Ihid.  p.  2.  ■*  llnd.  p.  6. 


THE   MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  15 

printed  in  1663,  and  is,  beyond  doubt,  what  Cotton  Mather,  in 
1709,  said  it  was,  "  the  first  horn,  by  way  of  the  press,  of  all  the 
Election  Sermons,  that  we  have  in  our  libraries."  It  is,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  strong  in  favor  of  Non-toleration ;  nor  does  its  author 
fail  to  remind  his  hearei-s  "  that  Nevj-England  is  originally  a  plan- 
tation of  Religio7i,  not  a  plantation  of  Trade.  Let  Merchants  and 
such  as  are  increasing  Cent  per  Cent  remember  this."  ^  This  sen- 
tence shows  him  to  have  been  the  vigorous  preacher  to  whose 
virtues  Nicholas  Noyes,  in  his  Elegy,  bears  testimony :  — 

"  Young  to  the  Pulpit  he  did  get, 
And  Seventy  Two  Years  iu  't  did  sweat."  ^ 

For  the  tliird  and  last  time  Richard  Mather,  in  166-4,  preached 
before  the  Court  of  Elections;  he  could  have  had  none  of  the 
fondness  for  appearing  in  print  on  the  least  pretext,  so  prominent 
in  his  son  Increase  and  grandson  Cotton,  for  he  seems  again  to 
have  failed  to  commit  his  sermon  to  the  press. 

The  sermons  of  John  Russell  for  1665,  and  of  Thomas  Cobbett 
for  1666,  were  not  printed,  so  far  as  can  be  discovered.  Russell 
was,  I  believe,  then  quietly  preaching  at  Hadley,  but  it  may  be 
that  his  sermon  came  under  the  ban  of  a  rigid  sectarian  censorship. 
Sibley  says  of  Russell,  "  in  1665  he  preached  the  Massachusetts 
Election  Sermon  from  Psalm  cxii.  6  ^ :  probably  not  published."  * 
In  Russell's  house  at  Hadley,  Whalley  and  Goffe  lived  for  some 
years. 

The  text  of  Cobbett's  sermon  is  referred  to  in  Mitchel's  sermon 
for  the  next  year  as  2  Chronicles  xv.  2. 

Jonathan  Mitchel's  sermon  for  1667  ^  was  not  printed  until 
1671,  after  his  death.  It  is  one  of  the  great  sermons  of  those  days, 
and  is  particularly  '^sound"  against  anabaptism,  toleration,  and 
Separatists.  Increase  Mather  quotes  from  it  approvingly  in  the 
preface  to  Torrey's  discourse  of  1674. 

*  Higginson's  "The  Cause  of  God  .  .  .",  p.  11. 

2  New-England  Historical  and  Genealogical  Register,  vii.  239. 

3  Edes  says  from  Psalm  cxxii.  6.  *  Sibley's  "  Graduates,"  i.  117. 

6  The  title  is  curious  enough  to  give  entire :  "  Nehemiah  on  the  Wall  in 
Troublesom  Times ;  or,  a  Serious  and  Seasonable  Improvement  of  that  great 
Example  of  Magistratical  Piety  and  Prudence,  Self-denial  and  Tenderness, 
Fearlessness  and  Fidelity,  unto  Instruction  and  Encouragement  of  present  and 
succeeding  Rulers  in  our  Israel." 


16  THE   IVIASSACHUSETTS    ELECTION   SERMONS. 

At  the  election  of  1668,  a  famous  discourse  was  preached  by 
William  Stoughton,  wliich  was  so  well  liked  that  the  Governor 
himself  presented  to  the  preacher  the  thanks  of  the  General  Court, 
and  a  request  to  prepare  it  for  the  press.^  It  was  printed  in  1670. 
The  printing  was  done  at  private  expense,  for  in  the  Advertise- 
ment a  "  Person  of  Worth "  is  spoken  of,  who  adventures  "  the 
publishing,  of  what  the  pious  Author  was  well-nigh  invincibly 
unwilling  should  ever  have  come  forth."  ^  It  is  strong  intellec- 
tually, and  contains  many  fine  passages ;  one,  in  particular,  im- 
pressed me,  in  which  are  rehearsed  the  sins  of  New  England.* 
There  appear  to  have  been,  to  the  saeva  indignatio  of  Stoughton, 
few  sins  of  which  New  England  was  then  innocent,  and  the  vio- 
lence of  his  wrath  bears  out  the  statement  in  his  epitaph  that 
Stoughton  was  "  Impietatis  &  Vitij  Hostis  Acerrimus." 

There  were  two  editions  of  Stoughton's  sermon  :  the  first  edition 
has  thirty-eight  pages ;  and  the  second  forty  pages,  of  which  the 
last  two  pages  were  in  finer  type.  For  the  second  edition  the  type 
was  probably  reset,  though  both  were  issued  in  the  same  year.  An 
abridgment  occupies  a  few  pages  of  "  Elijah's  Mantle  "  (Boston, 
1722 ;  1774),  and  selections  are  reprinted  as  appendixes  to  Prince's 
Election  Sermon  for  1730. 

In  this  sermon  occurs  the  famous  saying  of  Stoughton,  "  God 
sifted  a  whole  Nation  that  he  might  send  choice  Grain  over  into 
this  Wilderness."  Longfellow  no  doubt  had  this  in  mind  in  the 
"Courtsliip  of  Miles  Standish"  when  he  says,  "God  had  sifted 
three  kingdoms  to  find  wheat  for  this  planting." 

It  is  generally  suj)posed  that  the  sermon  for  1669  by  John 
Davenport  —  whom  the  Indians  called  "  so  big  study  man  " —  was 
never  printed,  l^ut  in  the  "  Magnalia  "  I  find  the  following :  "  Nor 
would  I  forget  a  Sermon  of  his  on  2  Sam.  23,  3,  at  the  Anniver- 
sary Court  of  Election  at  Boston,  1669,  afterwards  published."  * 

A  good  "  doctrinal  "  sermon  has  always  been  a  test  of  a  preach- 
er's ability  in  New  England.  But  it  seems  to  me,  as  I  have 
reviewed  this  long  stretch  of  years,  in  which  over  seven  generations 
of  clergy  and  lajonen  have  lived,  that  the  spirit  of  religion  has 
persistently  grown  better,  at  least  more  refined.     The  early  dis- 

1  i\Tassachusetts  Colony  Records,  iv.  Part  ii.  376. 

2  Stoughton's  "  New-England's  True  Interest,"  p.  3.  ^  Ibid.  p.  20. 
*  Magnalia,  Book  iii.  p.  5G. 


THE   MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SEBMONS.  17 

courses  were  full  of  ecclesiasticism,  theology,  and  good  politics,  but 
of  humanity,  brotherly  kindness,  and  what  is  now  understood  by 
Chiistianity,  I  have  been  able  to  discern  very  little.  Nor  is  this 
hard  to  explain.  The  ministers  then  were  important  factors  in 
society,  and  in  many  cases,  by  their  great  learning,  and  their  social 
remoteness  from  their  laity,  inevitably  had  little  in  common  with 
those  among  whom  they  most  faithfully  and  earnestly  labored. 

In  view  of  these  facts,  we  can  understand  in  what  spirit  Cotton 
Mather  commends  such  a  sermon  as  Samuel  Danforth  preached  in 
1670.  To  Mather,  Danforth  was  eminent  because  he  was  "•  a  notable 
Text-Msin,  and  one  who  had  more  than  Forty  or  Fifty  Scriptures 
distinctly  quoted  in  One  Discourse."  ^  The  following  metaphorical 
sentence  from  Danforth's  sermon  seems  worth  repeating :  "  Such 
as  escape  the  Lime-pit  of  Pharisaical  Hypocrisie,  fall  into  the  Coal- 
pit of  Sadducean  Atheism  and  Epicurism."  ^ 

The  J.  O.  who  preached  in  1671  was  John  Oxenbridge,  and  his 
sermon  is  now  exceedingly  rare. 

If  it  were  possible  or  desirable  to  pick  out  the  "  best "  from 
over  two  hundi-ed  sermons,  I  should  be  inclined  to  choose  Thomas 
Shepard's  famous  "  Eye-Salve  "  which  he  preached  in  1672,  and 
which  is  worth  mentioning  somewhat  fully.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
there  is  in  it  "  Constellated  .  .  .  much  Learning,  Wisdom,  Holiness 
and  Faithfulness,  "  ^  but  it  also  is,  as  Mr.  Thornton  wrote  in  his 
own  copy,  "  of  much  historical  interest  and  value."  So  many  of 
its  sentences  have  passed  into  our  literary  inheritance  that  it  may 
well  be  held  as  an  American  classic.  With  Stoughton,  Shepard  is 
opposed  to  all  false  liberalism,  as  when  he  says :  "  'T  is  Satan's 
policy,  to  plead  for  an  indefinite  and  boundless  toleration."  *  He 
is  plainly  parapln-asing  Stoughton  in  an  almost  equally  familiar 
sentence :  "  The  Lord  sowed  this  land  at  first  with  such  precious 
seed-corn,  as  was  pickt  out  of  our  whole  Nation."  ^  He  calls  Laud 
—  at  least  Laud  seems  to  be  the  person  meant  —  a  "  Bear  "  ^  a 
"  ravening  wolf,"  and  a  "  Fox."  ^  The  Quakers,  always  an  object 
of  animadversion  in  the  Election  Sermon,  are  the  "  brood  of  the 

*  Magnalia,  Book  iv.  p.  154,  §  5. 
2  Danforth's  Election  Sermon  for  1670,  p.  15. 
8  Magnalia,  Book  iv.  p.  191,  §  5. 

4  Shepard's  "  Eye-Salve,"  p.  1-4.  6  /j/^  p   ^o. 

«  lUd.  p.  13.  1  Ibid.  p.  13. 

2 


18  THE   MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

Serpent."  ^  I  must  not  forget  to  add  that  Shepard  pleads  nobl}«i  to 
have  "  Foundations  laid  for  Free-Schools^  where  j)oor  Scholars  might 
be  there  educated  by  some  Publick  Stock."  ^  The  need  of  ade- 
quate schools,  especially  of  ''•  inferiour "  schools,  as  they  were 
called,  was  continually  presented  in  these  sermons,  down  to  the 
middle  of  the  last  century. 

A  closely  printed  small  quarto  of  seventy  pages,  comprises  the 
sermon  for  1673,  by  Urian  Oakes,  of  whom  it  is  said  that  he  had 
been  seen  to  turn  liis  hour-glass  four  times  during  a  service  !  He 
is  not  behind  Shepard  in  hating  toleration  as  the  "  first  born  of  all 
Abominations,"  though  "  heartily  for  all  due  Moderation."  It  is 
clear  that  authors  then  had  the  same  impressive  modesty  as  now, 
for  the  addi'ess  to  the  '•"  Cliristian  Reader "  tells  the  old  coy  story 
that,  by  "  the  concurrent  and  importunate  intreaties  of  very  many 
his  Brethren  ...  he  hath  been  at  last  prevailed  with,  to  permit  it 
to  pass  through  the  press."  Cotton  Mather,  in  saying  of  Oakes, 
"  America  never  had  a  greater  master  of  the  true,  pure  Ciceronian 
Latin  language,"  shows  his  pleasure  at  the  use  of  such  words  as 
"  succenturiation  "  ^  and  "  recidivation."  *  Tliis  Latinist  could 
also  use  his  mother  tongue  to  good  effect  in  hurling  epithets  at 
"  wanton  Gospellers,"  "  giddy  Professors,"  "  petty  Politicians," 
and  "  little  creeping  Statesmen  "  who  busied  themselves  in  "  lying 
and  calumniating  men  of  piety  worth  and  authority."  His  sermon 
was  important,  besides  having,  I  believe,  the  longest  title  to  be 
found  in  the  whole  array  of  Election  Sermons.^ 

Sibley^  says  that  Stoughton,  Shepard,  Oakes,  and  Torrey  who 
preached  in  1674,  all  exhibit  in  their  Election  sermons,  "  the 
prevalent  clerical  views  of  the  day,"  and  that  "  all  of  them  have  a 
bearing  on  religious  toleration."     By  tliis  time  there  was  created 

1  Shepard's  "  Eye-Salve,"  p.  13.  2  /j/f/.  p.  44. 

8  Oakes's  "Xew-England  Pleaded  with,"  p.  19.  *  /^/f/.  p.  36. 

6  "  New-England  Pleaded  with,  And  pressed  to  consider  the  things  which 
concern  her  Peace,  at  least  in  this  her  Day:  Or,  A  Seasonable  and  Serious 
Word  of  faithful  Advice  to  the  Churches  and  People  of  God  (primarily  those) 
in  the  Massachusets  Colony ;  musingly  to  Ponder,  and  bethink  themselves,  what 
is  the  Tendency,  and  will  certainly  be  the  sad  Issue,  of  sundry  unchristian  and 
crooked  wayes,  which  too  too  many  have  been  turning  aside  unto,  if  persisted 
and  gone  on  in." 

6  Sibley's  «  Graduates,"  i.  p.  328. 


THE   MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  19 

in  New  England  that  inevitable  class  of  thinkers  who  see  the  glory- 
only  of  the  past ;  for  them  there  is  no  sunrise,  it  is  always  sunset. 
To  Samuel  Torrey,  who  was  one  of  these  painful  preachers,  the 
golden  age  of  New  England,  though  then  dating  back  less  than 
forty  years,  was  gone  forever.  "  Truly,  so  it  is,  the  very  heart  of 
New-England  is  changed,  and  exceedingly  corrupted  with  the  sins 
of  the  Times :  there  is  a  Spirit  of  Profaneness,  a  Spirit  of  Pride,  a 
Spirit  of  Worldliness,  a  Spirit  of  Sensuality,  a  Spirit  of  Gainsaying 
and  Rebellion,  a  Spirit  of  Libertinism,  a  Spirit  of  Carnality,  For- 
mality, Hypocrisie,  and  Spiritual  Idolatry  in  the  Worship  of  God."  ^ 
A  rich  crop  of  tares  considering  the  preciousness  of  the  "seed 
corn ! "  This  was  surely  a  wicked  world  in  1674  to  contain  so 
many  evil  "  Spirits,"  yet  good  Mr.  Torrey  lingered  in  it  long 
enough  to  preach  two  more  Election  sermons,  one  in  1683,  and  one 
in  1695,  and  died  in  1707  at  the  ripe  age  of  seventy-five.  In  his 
last  sermon  he  was  still  taking  a  gloomy  view  and  holding  fast  by 
the  ministry  as  a  forlorn  hope.  Yet  there  was  in  him  a  deep  con- 
cern for  the  cure  of  souls,  and  his  earnestness  may  have  been  as 
sincere  as  Carlyle's.  At  all  events  such  men  had  none  of  that 
smug  optimism  of  more  recent  years,  which  prompted  a  clergyman 
of  this  state,  recently  deceased,  to  pray  to  his  Maker  for  "  that 
self-complacency  which  is  the  balm  of  life." 

Joshua  Moody  preached  in  1675,  and  again  in  1692  ;  but  neither 
of  his  sermons  is  known  to  exist  in  print.  I  am  of  the  opinion, 
however,  that  both  were  printed.  In  connection  with  the  first 
sermon  is  the  following  entry  in  the  "  Colony  Records  "  :  "  This 
Court,  considering  the  elaborate  «&  seasonable  discourse  of  the 
Reuend  M'  Joshua  Moody  enterteyned  the  Generall  Assembly 
with  on  the  day  of  eleccon,  judge  meet  to  entreate  the  sajd  M' 
Moody  to  transcribe  a  copy  thereof  meete  for  the  presse,  that  it 
may  be  printed."  ^  Sibley  says  "  the  sermon  may  not  have  been 
printed."^  An  additional,  though  slight,  reason  for  thinking  it 
was  printed,  is  that  Increase  Mather,  in  1677,  spoke  of  it  as  "  that 
Scripture  which  was  worthily  opened  and  applyed  in  this  place 
upon  the  like  solemn  occasion  two  years  ago,  Judg.  2.  7.  10."  * 
As  for  the  1692  sermon.  Haven's  list  in  Thomas's  "  History  of 

1  Torrey's  Election  Sermon  for  1674,  p.  8. 

2  Massachusetts  Colony  Records,  v.  34.  «  Sibley's  "  Graduates,"  i.  379. 
*  Mather's  "  A  Call  from  Heaven,"  1677,  p.  59  ;  second  impression,  1685,  p.  81. 


20  THE   MASSACHUSETTS    ELECTION    SERMONS. 

Printing  in  America,"  gives  the  following  title  :  "  People  of  New 
England  Reasoned  with.  Election  Sermon,  May  4, 1692."  Samuel 
Sewall  has  an  interesting  entry  regarding  the  election  for  1692 : 
"  May  4.  Election-Day,  Major  Hutchinson  and  Capt.  Greenough's 
Companies  attend,  Mr.  Moodey  preaches.  Dine  at  Wing's.  .  .  . 
No  Treat  at  the  Governour's  but  Beer,  Cider,  Wine."  ^ 

All  honor  to  Moody  (or,  as  he  spelt  it,  Moodey),  for,  if  we  may 
believe  the  Reverend  William  Bentley,^  he  advised  those  arrested 
on  the  charge  of  witchcraft  to  evade  trial  by  running  away ! 

The  "  Happiness  of  a  People  in  the  Wisdome  of  their  Rulers," 
preached  by  William  Hubbard  in  1676,  was  a  very  long  sermon, 
and  even  to  Hubbard's  patient  contemporaries  a  very  dry  one,  for 
the  first  edition  does  not  seem  to  have  sold  well.  It  was  printed 
by  John  Foster  in  1676,  not  long  after  he  had  set  up  his  press  in 
Boston,  and  being  a  stout  and  solid  little  quarto  of  some  seventy 
pages,  did  not  create  a  very  lively  demand.  There  was  commer- 
cial enterprise  in  Boston,  however,  from  its  start ;  Foster  bound 
up  the  unsalable  sheets  with  Hubbard's  more  popular  "  Narrative 
of  the  Troubles  with  the  Indians,"  and  so,  slu-ewdly  disposed  of 
the  edition.  By  itself,  or  with  the  Narrative,  this  sermon  has,  of 
course,  great  bibliographical  interest.  Hubbard  was  inclined  to 
clemency,  and  even  went  so  far  towards  liberalism  as  to  doubt  if 
a  heretic  deserves  capital  punishment.^  I  regret  to  say  that  the 
views  on  the  civil  service  expressed  in  this  discourse  were  sadly 
corrupt.  He  says  on  this  point,  "  Concerning  inferiour  Officers, 
such  as  are  Fiscalls  &  Treasurers,  whose  places  (by  reason  of  the 
profit  they  usually  are  attended  with)  are  more  liable  to  tempta- 
tion &  corruption,  there  is  no  matter  of  danger  in  their  change."  * 

Increase  Mather,  who  may  fairly  be  called  the  prince  of  Election 
preachers,  appeared  four  times  before  the  Court,  —  in  1677,  1693, 
1699,  and  in  1702.  Not  only  did  this  eminent  man  do  what  he 
could  to  perpetuate  the  custom,  but  he  seemed  to  have  had,  in 
common  with  many,  a  genuine  reverence  for  the  entire  public 
ceremony  of  which  it  was  a  part.  His  first  sermon,  that  for  1677, 
was  only  printed  in  a  larger  work  of  his,  "  A  Call  from  Heaven." 
In  his  blasts  against  "  sinful  toleration,"  and  "  Hideous  clamours 

1  Sewall's  Diary,  i.  360. 

2  1  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,  x.  65. 

8  Hubbard's  "  Happiness  of  a  People,"  1676,  p.  39.  *  Ihid.  p.  26. 


THE   MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  21 

for  liberty  of  Conscience,"  lie  no  doubt  spoke  with  that  "  tonitru- 
ous  cogency  "  for  which  his  son  tells  us  he  was  famous. 

An  historical  interest  attaches  to  the  sermon  for  1693.  Mather 
had  lately  returned  from  his  mission  to  England  to  secure  the 
second  Charter,  and  liis  discourse  is  in  part  a  vindication  of  liimself 
and  of  the  Charter  against  some  unfavorable  criticism.  It  is  com- 
mendably  short,  and  closes  with  a  rather  faint  admonition  to  pray 
for  the  King.  "  And  pray  for  the  Queen  !  "  he  adds,  bringing  to 
mind,  by  this  afterthought,  Dr.  Chauncy's  famous  prayer  for  the 
drowned  boy. 

Unfortunately  there  is  no  trace  of  the  sermon  preached  in 
1678  by  Samuel  Phillips  of  Rowley,  the  great-great^greatrgrand- 
father  of  Wendell  Phillips.  The  preacher  showed  a  fondness  for 
free  speech,  — •  which  he  must  have  transmitted,  —  for  he  was 
imprisoned  for  the  "  crime  "  of  calling  Randolph  a  "  wicked 
man." 

James  Allen,  who  preached  in  1679,  admitted  having  "soul 
tremblings  "  at  the  thought  of  speaking  on  such  an  occasion.  The 
typography  of  his  sermon  is  strikingly  good ;  the  type  is  fine,  and 
on  the  whole  clear,  while  there  is  a  noticeable  absence  of  an  excess 
of  capital  letters.  Of  Phillips's  sermon  the  year  before,  he  says  : 
"  If  their  missing  it  further  your  prayer,  that  is  the  best  way  to 
rectifie  their  proceedings,  1  Tim.  2.  1,  2,  whence  you  were  sol- 
emnly exhorted  to  it  the  last  year,  by  a  faithful  Servant  of  Christ."  ^ 
There  is  some  reason  to  suppose,  herefrom,  that  this  discourse  may 
have  appeared  in  print- 
Nothing  more  is  known  respecting  the  sermon  for  1680,  by 
Edward  Bulkley,  and  that  for  1681,  by  William  Brimsmead, 
beyond  the  fact  that  both  were  preached. 

Samuel  Willard's  sermon  for  1682  was  printed  as  part  of  a  larger 
work,  "  The  Child's  Portion,"  and  is  entitled,  "  The  only  sure  way 
to  prevent  thi-eatened  calamity."  A  reading  of  his  words  convinces 
one  that  he  spoke  the  truth  when  he  said,  "  I  am  far  from  plead- 
ing for  or  justifying  anything  that  looks  like  Enthusiasm. '''  Still 
it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  he  abode  lonsf  enough  in  this  frail 
tabernacle  to  become  the  father  of  twenty  children.  He  preached 
also  in  1694,  thirty-five  years  after  graduation,  on  "  The  Character 
of  a  good  Ruler  ;  "  which  is,  to  tell  the  truth,  the  subject  of  four- 

1  Allen's  Election  Sermon  for  1670,  p.  8. 


22  THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

fifths  of  all  Election  Sermons.  His  ideas,  however,  were  in  ad- 
vance of  his  times.  "  Civil  Government  is  seated  in  no  particular 
Persons  or  Families  by  a  Natural  right,"  he  says ;  "  neither,"  he 
continues,  "  hath  the  Light  of  Nature,  nor  the  Word  of  God  deter- 
mined, what  Form  of  Government  shall  be  established  among  men, 
whether  Monarchical,  Aristocratical,  or  Democraticaiy  ^ 

There  are  in  every  generation  certain  persons  who  seem  to  be 
especially  delegated  to  preserve  for  future  generations  the  smaller, 
but  not  necessarily  unimportant,  facts  of  contemporary  life.  Such 
a  man  was  Pepys  to  England,  and  another  was  Judge  Samuel 
Sewall,  the  Diarist.  Among  the  varied  occupations  of  this  good 
man's  life  was,  curiously  enough,  a  diligent  solicitude  for  the 
preaching  of  and  listening  to  the  Massachusetts  Election  Sermons. 
But  for  him,  and  the  Mathers,  the  great  collections  in  the  Massa- 
chusetts Historical  Society  and  the  Boston  Public  Library  could 
not  have  existed.  These  men  were  succeeded  in  their  tasks  by  the 
Reverend  Thomas  Prince,  and  a  century  later  by  the  Reverend 
John  Pierce.  I  shall  not  hesitate  to  quote  freely  from  Se wall's 
Diary,  for  I  am  convinced  that  he  made  these  sermons  his  especial 
care ;  he  even  interested  himself  in  the  printing  of  them ;  and  he 
would  often  present  copies  as  tender  souvenirs.  In  fact,  he  never 
seemed  to  go  abroad  without  one  about  his  person.  Once  —  to 
mention  a  solitary  instance  —  he  meets  Mr.  Pemberton  "  by  Mr. 
Gerrishe's  shop  ...  he  was  going,  it  seems,  to  Madam  Saltonstall's. 
I  went  with  him  having  Election-Sermons  in  my  Pocket."  ^ 

John  Hale  preached  in  1684 ;  and  was  asked  to  prepare  a  copy 
for  the  press.  "  This  Court,  taking  notice  of  the  great  paynes  & 
labour  of  the  Reuend  M""  John  Hale  in  his  sermon  vpon  the  last 
election  day,  doe  hereby  order  Samuell  Nowell,  Esq',  M''  Henry 
Bartholmew,  Capt  Daniel  Epps,  &  M'  Excercise  Connant  to  give 
M''  Hale  the  thanks  of  this  Court  for  his  great  pajnes,  and  that,  as 
a  further  testimony  of  their  acceptance  thereof,  doe  in  the  Courts 
name  desire  a  coppy  of  him,  that  may  be  fitted  for  the  presse, 
and  to  take  effectuall  care  that  the  same  be  printed  at  the  publick 
charge."  ^  No  copy  is  known.  Sibley  says,  "  I  have  not  seen  a 
copy  of  this  sermon,  nor  the  title  in  any  catalogue."  *  It  is  curious 
that  Sprague,  in  his  "Annals  of  the  American  Pulpit,"  should 

^  Willard's  Election  Sermon  for  1694,  p.  20.     ^  Sewall's  Diary,  iii.  7. 

*  Massachusetts  Colony  Records,  v.  441.  ■*  Sibley's  "  Graduates,"  i.  519. 


THE   MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  23 

speak  of  this  sermon  as,  with  one  exception,  "  the  only  product 
of  Mr.  Hale's  pen,  known  to  have  been  printed."  ^ 

"  God's  eye  on  the  contrite,"  by  William  Adams,  in  1685,  is 
representative  of  the  flagellations  which  the  old  ministers  used  to 
visit  upon  crying  sins.  "  Privileged  professors,"  he  says,  "  may  be 
discovered  to  be  sinners  ;  some  to  be  proud,  haughty,  high-minded, 
supercilious,  self-exalting,  arrogant ;  others  to  be  sensual,  intemper- 
ate, corrupt,  fleshly,  lascivious  ;  .  .  .  others  to  be  covetous,  unjust, 
oppressive,"  ^  and  so  on,  even  to  the  extent  of  being  "  company- 
keepers  "  who  "  sit  and  spend  time  with  vain  persons."  "  Low 
worms  "  the  worthy  parson  fuids  his  fellows,  and  "  that  the  Great 
God  should  look  upon  such  notliings,  is  a  great  stoop."  ^  We 
find  Mr.  Adams,  on  6  August  of  the  same  year,  in  company  with 
Mr.  Torrey,  another  sorrowful  Election  preacher,  at  Sewall's  house. 
"  This  day  liis  [Adams's]  Election  Sermon  came  out,  and  Augt.  the 
7*.?  Friday  morn,  he  gave  me  the  Errata,  which  was  chiefly  carried 
away  in  stead  of  carried  with  ambition.  Suped  with  a  new  sort  of 
Fish  called  Coiiers,  my  wife  had  bought,  which  occasioned  Dis- 
course on  the  Subject.  Mr.  Adams  returned  Thanks."  *  His  sermon 
was  reprinted  in  the  "  Dedham  Pulpit."     (Boston,  1840.) 

Michael  Wigglesworth  was  the  preacher  in  1686,  and  his  text 
was  from  Revelation  ii.  4,  but  no  copy  of  the  sermon  seems  to 
exist,  although  a  request  for  the  press  was  made.  "  It  is  ordered, 
that  M''  Humphry  Davy  &  M''  Treasurer  give  the  Reiiend  M""  Michael 
Wigglesworth  the  thanks  of  this  Court  for  his  sermon  on  Wednes- 
day last,  &  to  desire  him  speedily  to  prepare  the  same  for  the 
presse,  adding  thereto  what  he  had  not  then  time  to  deliuer,  the 
Court  judging  that  the  printing  of  it  will  be  for  publick  benne- 
fitt."  ^  The  preacher  may  not  have  been  well  enough  to  comply 
with  this  request,  for  in  his  prayer  he  speaks  of  his  ill-health.^ 
Mr.  John  Ward  Dean's  explanation  of  the  failure  of  this  ser- 
mon to  appear  is  that  "  as  the  government  was  dissolved  soon 
after,  it  is  possible  that  the  sermon  was  never  printed,  thougli  in 
several  lists  it  is  marked  as  having  been  printed."  ^     Mr.  Sibley 

^  Sprague's  Annals,  i.  170. 

2  Adams's  Election  Sermon  for  1685,  p.  11.  s  /j,v/.  p.  17. 

*  Sewall's  Diary,  i.  92.  6  Massachusetts  Colony  Records,  v.  514. 

e  Sewall's  Diary,  i.  136. 

'  Memoir  of  Wigglesworth,  p.  93. 


24  THE   RIASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

thinks  the  change  in  the  government  rendered  the  printing  of 
it  "  inexpedient  or  inconvenient."  ^  The  "  American  Quarterly 
Register,"  however,  states  that  "  He  preached  the  Election  Sermon 
in  1686,  wliich  was  published."  ^ 

A  double  interest  attaches  to  tliis  sermon,  both  because  of  the 
condition  of  affairs  in  the  Colony  at  its  delivery,  and  from  the  char- 
acter of  liim  who  preached  it.  The  following  extract  from  Sew- 
all's  Diary  is  all  that  is  likely  to  be  known  concerning  it :  — 

"  May  12,  1686.  Pleasant  day.  Goveruour  ill  of  s  Gout,  goes  not  to 
Meeting.  Mr.  Wigglesworth  preaches  from  Rev.  2.  4  and  part  of 
5""  V.  and  do  thy  first  works,  end  of  the  Text.  Shew'd  the  want  of  Love, 
or  abating  in  it,  was  ground  enough  of  Controversy,  whatsoever  outward 
performances  a  people  might  have.  In 's  prayer  said.  That  may  know 
the  things  of  our  peace  in  this  our  day,  and  it  may  be  the  last  of  our 
days.  Acknowledged  God  as  to  the  Election,  and  bringing  forth  him  as 
't  were  a  dead  Man,  —  had  been  reckoned  among  the  dead,  —  to  preach."  ^ 

"  There  are,"  says  Hutchinson,  "  no  public  records  from  the 
dissolution  of  the  old  charter  government  in  1686,  until  the  resto- 
ration of  it  in  1689."  *  Sewall's  Diary,  too,  is  silent  regarding  the 
sermons  during  this  period,  nor  do  I  find  any  hint  regarding  them 
elsewhere.  It  seems,  therefore,  highly  probable  ^  that  blanks  must 
be  left  for  the  years  1687  and  1688,  — the  first  since  1662,  and  the 
last  to  occur,  with  three  exceptions,  until  1885. 

Like  his  father,  Cotton  Mather  preached  four  times,  if  it  be 
decided  to  admit  in  the  regular  series  his  sermon  delivered  at 
the  deposition  of  Andros  before  the  "  Honourable  Convention  of 
the  Governour,  Council,  and  Representatives  ...  on  May  23, 
1689."  In  his  half  religious,  half  superstitious  manner,  Mather 
explains  the  cause  of  the  frequent  evils  in  the  Colony.  But  there 
have  been  monitions,  too,  he  thinks ;  "  Especially  the  Sermons 
which  our  Elections  have  put  the  Embassadours  of  God  upon 
Preaching  and  Printing  of;  these  have  so  many  loud  Warnings 
unto  us."^ 

1  Sibley's  "  Graduates,"  i.  285.  ^  American  Quarterly  Register,  xi.  193. 

8  Sewall's  Diary,  i.  136. 

4  History  of  Massachusetts-Bay,  i.  354,  note. 

5  "  Not  till  after  the  deposition  of  Gov.  Andros,  T  presume,  was  another  Elec- 
tion Sermon  preached  at  Boston."     (Dean's  Memoir  of  Wigglesworth,  p.  92.) 

*  Mather's  "  Way  to  Prosperity,"  p.  23. 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS  ELECTION   SERMONS.  25 

Characteristically,  he  smuggles  in  something  entirely  foreign  to 
the  subject ;  this  time  it  is  a  "  Discourse  fetch't  from  a  Reserved 
Collection  of  MEMORABLE  PROVIDENCES,"  in  which  he 
gossips  of  red  snow,  of  a  wondi'ous  cabbage  with  three  branches, 
and  of  other  marvels  equally  germane  to  the  "Way  to  Prosperity."  ^ 

"Above  seventy  years  have  rolled  about,  since  a  Frenchman," 
—  in  this  decidedly  modern  and  romantic  manner  Cotton  Mather 
begins  his  sermon,  "  The  Serviceable  Man,"  for  1690.  He  deals 
with  the  Andi'os  government  as  it  deserved;  calls  the  Quakers  "  the 
most  Malicious^  as  well  as  the  most  Pernicious  Enemies,"  ^  and  dubs 
some  of  the  contentious  New  Englanders  "silly  chickens."  He 
mentions  one  person  in  the  General  Court  "  who  can  count,  I  sup- 
pose, Thi-eescore  years  from  the  Time  that  fost  he  took  a  seat 
among  our  Magistrates'''^  —  meaning,  no  doubt,  the  venerable 
Bradstreet.  It  was  a  lively  sermon,  and  in  many  respects  "  sen- 
sible," as  we  now  understand  the  word. 

Cotton  Mather's  Sermon  for  1696  is  one  of  the  two  needed  to 
complete  the  printed  series  in  possession  of  the  Massachusetts  His- 
torical Society.  Copies  of  this  rare  work  are  owned  by  the  Ameri- 
can Antiquarian  Society  of  Worcester,  and  by  the  Boston  Public 
Library.*  In  connection  with  the  occasion  of  its  delivery  Sewall 
has  the  following  entry :  "  May  27,  1696.  Election.  Rainy  day, 
which  wet  the  Troops  that  waited  on  the  Lieut.  Governour  to 
Town.  Mr.  Cotton  Mather  preaches.  Powring  out  Water  at 
Mispeh,  the  Text."  ^ 

The  ill-printed  sermon  for  1700,  "  A  Pillar  of  Gratitude,"  was 
Cotton  Mather's  last  effort  at  the  Annual  election.  It  is  full 
of  such  naivete  as  the  following :  "  Indeed  New  England  is  not 
Heaven.     That  we  are  sure  of  I     But  for  my  part,  1  do  not  ask  to 

1  The  imprint  of  some  copies  of  this  sermon,  "  The  Way  to  Prosperity,"  is  : 
Boston,  Printed  by  Richard  Pierce,  for  Benjamin  Harris.  Anno  Domini,  1690 ; 
of  other  copies  it  is :  Printed  by  R.  Pierce,  for  Joseph  Brnnning,  Obadiah  Gill, 
and  James  Woode.  (See  Sibley's  "  Graduates,"  iii.  50.)  This  sermon  may  also 
be  found  in  Cotton  Mather's  "  Wonderful  Works  of  God  commemorated." 

2  Mather's  Election  Sermon  for  1690,  p.  34.  »  iUfi  p,  53 

4  The  title  is:  "Things  for  a  Distress'd  People  to  think  upon."  There 
was  an  imperfect  copy  in  George  Brinley's  library,  which  lacked  three  pages 
of  the  Postscript.  Tlie  Worcester  copy  includes  only  pp.  5-74.  The  only 
known  perfect  copy  is  in  the  Boston  Public  Library.  These  three  are  the  only 
copies  of  which  I  have  heard. 

6  Sewall's  Diary,  i.  426. 


26  THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

remove  out  of  New-England,  except  for  a  Removal  unto  Heaven."  ^ 
Here  is  a  spark  of  early  Know-Nothingism :  "  At  length  it  was 
proposed,  that  a  colony  of  Irish  might  be  sent  over,  to  check  the 
growth  of  this  countrey :  an  Happy  Revolution  spoiled  that 
Plot."  2 

No  preacher  is  known  for  1691,  nor  can  I  find  any  explanation 
for  this  omission,  as  in  the  cases  of  the  years  1687,  1688,  1752, 
and  1764. 

Mr.  Edes  has  put  in  brackets  the  Christian  name,  Jolm,  of  the 
Reverend  Mr.  Danforth  who  preached  in  1697 ;  but  there  is  really 
no  doubt  that  the  preacher  was  John  Danforth  of  Dorchester,  who, 
Sibley  says,  "preached  the  Artillery  Election  Sermon  in  1693, 
and  the  Election  Sermon  in  1697 ;  but  they  may  not  have  been 
printed."  ^  Sewall's  entry  for  26  May,  1697,  is :  "  Election  day : 
Capt.  Foster  Guards  the  Governour  to  the  Town-house,  where  the 
Court  had  a  Treat.  Mr.  Danforth  preaches.  Dine  at  the  stone 
house."  *  Later  on,  in  1707,  Sewall  makes  a  memorandum,  which 
settles  all  doubt,  as  follows :  "  Tuesday,  Jan^  14'^.  Gov"^  calls  a 
Council,  Propounds  Mr.  Danforth,  Dorchester,  and  Mr.  Belchar 
of  Newbury  to  Preach  the  Election  Sermon ;  Mr.  Samuel  Belchar 
is  agreed  on,  Mr.  Danforth  having  preach'd  before."  ^  On  the  same 
page  Sewall  speaks  of  giving  away  several  copies  of  Higginson's 
Election  Sermon. 

The  memory  of  Nicholas  Noyes,  who  preached  in  1698,  is  not  a 

1  Mather's  Election  Sermon  for  1700,  p.  11.  2  jn^i,  p  31. 

3  Sibley's  "  Graduates,"  ii.  514. 

*  Sewall's  Diary,  i.  453.  This  was  the  Star  Tavern.  It  stood  on  the  north- 
easterly corner  of  Hanover  and  Union  streets,  running  back  to  and  abutting 
upon  Link  Alley  (later  known  as  North  Federal  Court),  which  was  discontinued, 
closed,  and  built  upon  in  1857-1860.  It  was  here  that  the  Court  of  Admiralty 
sat,  in  1704,  for  the  trial  of  Capt.  John  Quelch  and  his  company  for  piracy, 
when  Stephen  North  was  the  inn-keeper.  Cf .  Sewall's  Diary,  ii.  108 ;  Pi'ovince 
Laws,  viii.  395,  note ;  Shurtleff's  Topographical  and  Historical  Description  of 
Boston,  pp.  405,  607,  630,  656 ;  Nomenclature  of  Streets  (Boston  City  Docu- 
ment No.  119  of  1879),  pp.  21,  26,  35,  89,  95;  John  Bonner's  Plan  of  1722; 
John  Groves  Hales's  Maps  of  the  Street  Lines  of  Boston  in  1819  and  1820, 
p.  185;  and  Annual  Report  of  the  Boston  Street  Laying  Out  Department  for 
1894  (City  Document  No.  35  of  1895),  pp.  196,  228. 

I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Henry  H.  Edes  for  this  valuable  note,  which  identifies 
not  only  the  "  Stone  House,"  but  a  lost  alley. 

s  Sewall's  Diary,  ii.  178, 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  27 

sweet  savor  in  New-England  history.  He  was  not  only  a  prosecutor 
at  witch-trials,  but  also  a  punster  and  a  writer  of  obituary  poetry ; 
notwithstanding  all  this,  there  is  reason  to  suppose  him  to  have 
been  a  God-fearing,  and  in  most  respects  a  good,  man.  He  finally 
confessed  his  madness  towards  witches,  and  sought  to  repair  the 
evil  done.  He  fell  into  the  fashion  of  his  age  and  of  his  cloth  in 
preaching  the  "  degeneracy  of  the  times."  In  his  sermon  of  ninety- 
nine  pages  he  draws  up  his  indictjnents,  —  irreligion,  swearing, 
and  so  on,  sixteen  counts  in  all,  —  against  his  country.  Yet, 
he  admits,  "  it  cannot  with  truth  be  asserted,  that  as  yet  we 
are  as  bad  as  bad  can  be  ;  for  there  is  real  danger  of  growing 
worse."  1  He  also  seriously  discourses  as  to  whether  Indians  are 
really  worth  converting  !  ^  There  is  at  the  end  of  the  sermon  an 
interesting  short  account  of  the  plantations  of  Indians  in  the 
Province,  written  by  "preachers  to  the  Indians  in  their  own 
tongue,"  — ■  Grindall  Rawson  and  Samuel  Danforth,  both  of  whom 
preached  Election  Sermons  later.  This  mournful  Noyes  grew 
"  very  corpulent,"  and  is  said  to  have  died  choked  with  blood  from 
the  curse  of  a  witch ;  this  end  was  meted  out  with  a  justice  more 
poetical  than  his  obituary  verses,  for  he  would  not  on  one  occa- 
sion pray  with  John  Procter,  a  condemned  witch,  when  even  their 
dinner  had  been  taken  from  the  poor  witch's  children  by  the 
sheriff.^  More  humane  to  children  than  Noyes  was  Michael  Wig- 
glesworth  with  his  liberal  eagerness  to  grant  infants  in  another 
life  "the  easiest  room  in  hell." 

I  have  dwelt  upon  the  Election  Sermons  for  the  Seventeenth 
century  at  length,  for  they  are  interesting  cliiefly  because  of  their 
age;  there  is,  furthermore,  such  uncertainty  regarding  the  exist- 
ence of  some  of  them  in  printed  form,  that  any  account  of  them  is 
important.  Moreover,  there  were  giants  in  those  da3^s,  —  the  two 
Shepards,  Mitchel,  Higginson,  Norton,  Oakes,  the  Mathers,  far  as 
their  teachings  seem  removed  from  the  humane  ideas  of  later  times, 
were  mighty  men ;  their  sermons,  full  of  a  parade  of  theology,  over- 
burdened with  Scriptural  quotations  and  too  frequent  expressions 
of  the  fear,  common  to  the  clergy,  of  degeneracy,  were,  neverthe- 
less, masterly.  As  I  have  said,  Shepard's  "  Eye-Salve  "  for  1672 
is  worthy  of  being  regarded  a  New  England  classic. 

^  Noyes's  Election  Sermon  for  1698,  p.  58.  ^  /j;^,  pp,  Qf)  g(  ,ve^. 

*  Samuel  G.  Drake's  "The  Witchcraft  Delusion  in  New  England,"  iii.  40. 


28  THE  JNIASSACHUSETTS  ELECTION   SERMONS. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  describe  particularly  the  Election  Sermons 
of  the  eighteenth  century ;  several  good  collections  of  them  exist, 
and  may  without  much  difficulty  be  consulted.  There  is,  more- 
over, little  variety  in  the  treatment  of  subjects  appropriate  to  elec- 
tion-day ;  it  will  be  found  also,  even  among  election  preachers,  that 
there  were  some,  troubled  with  the  modern  complaint  of  "  mental 
absorption,"  who  repeated  other  preachers'  ideas.  For  a  hundi-ed 
years  after  Mitchel's  famous  "  Nehemiah  on  the  Wall,"  the  favorite 
prototype  of  the  exemplary  ruler  was  Nehemiah ;  he  was  served 
up  to  suit  every  palate.  He  disappeared  from  the  Election  Ser- 
mons after  the  Revolution,  though  I  have  noticed  a  tendency  to 
resuscitate  him  as  late  as  1850.  It  would  hardly  be  possible  to  say 
how  many  times  one  is  reminded  in  these  discourses  that  rulers  are 
"  nursing  fathers  of  the  State,"  or  "  God's  vicegerents  here  on 
earth."  Like  the  character  of  Nehemiah  such  pln-ases  became 
part  of  the  preacher's  stock  of  ideas. 

In  1701,  Sewall  writes,  under  the  date  of  28  May,  "  Mr.  Cooke, 
Addington,  Walley,  and  self  goe  in  my  Coach  and  meet  the  Lieut 
Gov! ;  met  the  Guard  and  his  Honor  near  the  first  Brook.  Mr. 
Belchar  ^  preaches  ;  L*  Gov',  notwithstanding  his  Infirmities,  was  an 
Auditor."  2 

Harvard  College  was  much  in  the  prayers  and  sermons  of  these 
older  divines  ;  the  College  certainly  had  its  ups  and  downs  —  more 
often  perhaps  being  in  sore  straits,  now  wanting  money,  now 
pupils.  Judging  from  some  passages  in  these  sermons,  I  do  not 
think  there  was  exaggeration  in  an  old  account  of  a  visit  to  the 
College  3  where  the  narrator  found  "  eight  or  ten  young  fellows, 
sitting  around,  smoking  tobacco."  Solomon  Stoddard,  in  his  ser- 
mon for  1703,  says,  "  'tis  not  worth  the  while  for  persons  to  be 
sent  to  the  Colledge  to  learn  to  Complement  men,  and  Court 
Women ;  they  should  be  sent  thither  to  prepare  them  for  Publick 
Service,  and  had  need  be  under  the  over-sight  of  wise  and  holy 
men."  *  It  was  Stoddard  who  preached  until  his  eighty-sixth  year 
without  the  use  of  notes.^ 

1  This  was  Joseph  Belcher ;  Samuel  Belcher  preached  in  1707. 

2  Sewall's  Diary,  ii.  34. 

3  Journal  by  Bankers  and  Sluyter  (Memoirs,  Long  Island  Historical  Society, 
i.),  p.  385. 

*  Stoddard's  Election  Sermon  for  1703,  p.  13. 
^  Sibley's  "  Graduates,"  ii.  114. 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS  ELECTION   SERMONS.  29 

Jonathan  Russell  —  whom  Sewall  calls  "  an  Orthodox  Usefull 
Man  "  ^  —  says  in  1704,  in  a  rather  gloomy  if  slangy  manner,  "  we 
han't  Glorifyed  God  as  God,  nor  been  thankful."  ^  On  the  other 
hand,  the  next  year,  Joseph  Estabrook,  in  his  "  Abraham  the  Pas- 
senger," says,  "  I  believe  there  are  as  many  real  Saints  in  this 
Land  as  in  any  Land  or  Nation  in  the  World,  for  the  quantity  of 
People."  3  In  tliis  year,  1705,  Governor  Joseph  Dudley,  in  one  of 
his  half-insane  freaks,  tried  to  disallow  the  right  of  the  election 
of  a  Speaker  by  the  House.  The  election  exercises  went  on,  how- 
ever. Sewall  says :  "  Now  t'  was  Candle-Lighting ;  for  went  into 
Meetinghouse  about  12.  Mr.  Easterbrooks  made  a  very  good  Ser- 
mon." *  The  next  day  Sewall  continues:  "Bro^vn,  Sewall,  Lynde 
go  to  thank  Mr.  Easterbrooks  for  his  Sermon  and  desire  a  copy  : 
He  Thanks  the  Gov''  and  Council  for  their  Acceptance  of  his  mean 
Labours  and  shews  his  unwillingness  to  be  in  print."  ^ 

John  Rogers  of  Ipswich  preached  in  1706,  notwithstanding  that 
the  year  before  the  Legislature  had  ordered  two  pamplilets  sent 
them  by  this  preacher  and  Rev.  Mr.  Rogers  of  Boxford,  "  to  be 
burnt  by  the  common  hangman,  near  the  whipping-post  in  Bos- 
ton." ^  The  act  was  no  doubt  a  phase  of  the  contention  between 
Dudley  and  the  House. 

In  1708  there  seems  to  have  existed  disaffection  in  the  minds  of 
some,  and  among  them  of  Cotton  Mather,  concerning  the  govern- 
ment, upon  which  it  is  not  worth  while  to  dwell ;  John  Norton  of 
Hingham,  however,  "  preaches  a  Flattering  Sermon  as  to  the  Gov- 
ernour  "  '^  in  which  he  speaks  of  "  this  Great  and  Good  Assembly, 
an  Assembly  of  chosen  People  of  the  Lord." 

"May  25  [1709],"  Sewall  says,  "At  Wiiiisimet  overtook  Mr. 
Corwin,  went  over  together ;  got  to  Boston  about  ten.  Heard  Mr. 
Rawson  preach  the  Election  Sermon  —  Before  your  feet  stumble 
upon  the  dark  Mountains."  ^  We  may  hope  confidently  that  Sew- 
all heard  the  text  with  profit,  and  did  not  permit  his  feet  to  stumble, 
for  the  next  entry  is  "  Dine  at  the  Green  Dragon."     This  sermon 

1  Sewall's  Diary,  ii.  301. 

'■^  Russell's  Election  Sermon  for  1704,  p.  14. 

3  Estabrook's  Election  Sermon  for  1705,  ix  10. 

4  Sewall's  Diary,  ii.  132.  5  /j/^.  jj.  130. 

*  Sibley's  "  Graduates,"  iii.  "273.  ^  Sewall's  Diary,  ii.  224. 

8  Ibid.  ii.  p.  256. 


30  THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

mentions  the  death  of  a  famous  New  England  trio,  Torrey,  Wil* 
lard,  and  Higginson,  and  comments  on  the  "  tricks  and  shifts  "  of 
towns  to  evade  the  school  laws.  It  was  a  sturdy  old  discourse  of 
forty  closely  printed  pages,  divided  into  four  propositions,  each 
in  turn  subdivided  and  rounded  off  with  an  application  and 
exhortation. 

A  little  unpleasantness  was  prefatory  to  the  delivery  of  Ebenezer 
Pemberton's  sermon  in  1710.  Samuel  May  of  Wrentham  wrote 
two  letters  refusing  to  preach,  and  after  some  discussion  Mr.  Pem- 
berton  was  agreed  on.  Sewall  says,  "  Then  Mr.  Secretary  did  the 
Message.  Mr.  Pemberton  disabled  himself."  ^  The  preacher  is 
still  coyly  excusing  himself,  while  Sewall  continues,  "  As  we  look 
towards  the  Artillery  passing  by,  I  said  to  Mr.  Pemberton  the 
passage  of  Ulysses,  — 

'  Si  mea  cum  vestris  valuissent  vota  Pelasgi.' 

Before  we  went  away,  word  was  brought  that  Dr.  Mather  was 
chosen  to  preach  the  Artillery  Sermon.  Mr.  Pemberton  said 
Must  choose  agen."  ^  A  few  days  later  the  worthy  man  fell  into 
a  pet  with  Sewall,  apparently  because  he  had  lost  a  good  dinner ; 
but  the  two  dined  together  at  the  Green  Dragon  after  the  delivery 
of  a  sermon,  which  is  printed  in  one  hundred  and  six  pages,  and 
reprinted  in  his  Sermons  and  Discourses  (London,  1727).  Sewall 
adds,  "70.  before  sermon."^  This  evidently  means  that  seventy 
members  had  been  already  sworn  in.  It  cannot  be  that  the  audi- 
ence was  no  more  than  seventy,  else  Pemberton  would  not  have 
spoken  of  appearing  "  this  Day  in  this  Awful  Desk."  * 

The  choice  of  a  preacher  in  1712  occasioned  some  debate,  and 
finally  Samuel  Cheever  was  selected.  "  The  Gov""  seem'd  to 
decline  Mr.  Walter  and  begin  to  hover  over  Mr.  Anger."  ^  Tliis, 
I  suppose,  was  the  Mr.  Angier  who,  in  1710,  Sewall  did  not  think 
was  a  sufficiently  "  Square  and  Stable  a  Man  "  ^  for  the  honor. 
We  learn  parenthetically  that,  during  Cheever's  sermon,  Sewall's 
son  Joseph  was  taken  with  one  of  his  "  intermitting  fevers." 

Samuel  Treat  preached  in  1713,  but  we  have  not  the  sermon. 

I  Sewall's  Diary,  ii.  278.  2  /j^v/.  ii.  078.  s  /j^v/.  n  982.   . 

^  Pemberton's  Election  Sermon  for  1710,  p.  4. 

6  Sewall's  Diary,  ii.  333.  «  Ibid.  ii.  278. 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  31 

His  text,  according  to  Sewall,  was  Psalms  ii.  8.  Dr.  Isaac  P. 
Langwortliy,  high  authority  in  everything  relating  to  early  New- 
England  religious  literature,  was  firmly  of  the  opinion  that  the 
sermons  for  1713  and  1717  were  never  printed,  although  both 
preachers  were  formally  requested  to  prepare  their  productions  for 
the  press.  The  year  1713  was  one  of  disturbance  in  Boston,  for 
then  occurred  its  first  and  only  bread  riot,  when  some  two  hun- 
dred people  sought  to  find  corn  in  Arthur  Mason's  storehouse 
on  the  Common.  All  tliis  may  have  put  less  important  mat- 
ters into  the  background.  Sibley  mentions  a  volume  of  Treat's 
sermons  "  correctly  transcribed  and  apparently  designed  for  pub- 
lication ;  "  1  perhaps  this  sermon  is  therein.  Treat,  we  learn,  was  a 
kindly  man,  with  a  loud  voice,  but  he  was  a  stiff  Calvinist.  Some- 
where he  cheerfully  exclaims  to  the  backslider,  "  Thou  must  erelong 
go  to  the  bottomless  pit.  Hell  hath  enlarged  herself,  and  is  ready 
to  receive  thee."  ^  Sewall  has  a  few  words  on  the  lost  sermon,  and 
says  that  it  "  Encourag'd  Rulers  to  be  Faithfull ;  Clmst  would 
meet  them  with  better  Revivals  and  Refreshm''^  than  Melchizedec 
met  Abraham  with.  Gave  this  advice  as  to  choice  of  Rulers,  what- 
ever other  accomplishments  were ;  yet.  Si  prof  anus  is  to  be 
avoided."  ^  Notwithstanding  all  this  good  advice.  General  Wait 
Still  Winthrop  was  "  dropped "  at  the  election. 

Concerning  the  Indians,  very  little  appears  in  these  sermons  of 
this  period ;  and  this  is  curious,  for  they  and  the  witches  occupied 
largely  the  attention  of  early  New  England.  In  connection,  how- 
ever, with  this  topic,  Jeremiah  Shepard,  in  his  discourse  for  1715, 
says,  "  A  work  never  to  be  forgotten,  is  the  Lord's  preparing  this 
wilderness  for  his  people  when  he  swept  away  thousands  of  those 
salvage  Tawnies  (those  cursed  Devil  worshippers)  with  a  mortal 
Plague,  to  make  room  for  a  better  People."*  I  have  not  come 
across  a  more  heartless  Pharisaism  than  this. 

Although  in  the  list  of  preachers  in  Andrew  Bigelow's  sermon 
for  1836,  the  sermon  preached  by  Roland  Cotton  in  1717  is  men- 
tioned as  being  of  duodecimo  size,  there  is  strong  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  it  was  never  printed.  Cotton  was,  however,  asked  to 
prepare  it  for  the  press.      Sibley  quotes,  perhaps    from    Josiah 

1  Sibley's  "  Graduates,"  ii.  308.  *  Tbid.  ii.  300. 

'  Sewall's  Diary,  ii.  385,  *  Shepard's  Election  Sermon  for  1715,  p.  20. 


32  THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SEEMONS. 

Cotton's  manuscript  diary,  to  the  effect  tliat  Roland  Cotton  "  would 
never  suffer  any  of  his  works  to  come  out  in  print."  ^ 

The  eighteenth  century  was  still  young  when  protests  began  to 
be  common  against  the  condition  of  the  finances,  and  particularly 
against  the  Province  Bills.  It  is  too  long  a  story  to  go  into  here  ; 
but  it  is  relevant  to  say  that  the  Election  preachers  kept  the  low 
state  of  the  crecUt  constantly  in  the  minds  of  their  hearers.  Ben- 
jamin Colman,  who  was  something  of  a  radical  for  those  days,  says 
plainly  in  1718,  "  what  we  call  a  luLiidred  Pounds  is  really  but  as 
seventy,  if  so  much."  ^  Tliis  subject,  and  the  condition  of  the 
College  and  the  "  inferior  "  schools,  were  often  recurred  to  at  this 
period. 

In  1719  Sewall  mentions  one  of  the  few  instances  of  a  declina- 
tion to  preach.  "  March,  11.  The  Gen'l  Court  meets.  Send  in  a 
Message  that  Mr.  Wise  declin'd  preaching  the  Election  Sermon, 
and  they  had  chosen  Mr.  Williams  of  Hatfield  to  preach  it."  ^ 

Election  Sermons  have  unquestionably  been  instrumental  for 
good  in  various  ways  ;  they  have  fired  patriotic  zeal,  strengthened 
irresolution,  perhaps  consoled  the  sick  or  needy,  or  converted  the 
backslider;  but  I  do  not  conceive  that  any  mortal  but  Samuel 
Sewall  would  ever  have  thought  of  using  an  Election  Sermon  as  a 
philtre  to  excite  the  tender  emotions  of  love.  In  his  famous  but 
unsuccessful  suit  to  Mrs.  Ruggles,  after  the  death  of  his  fii'st  wife, 
on  one  occasion  he  "  went  in  the  Coach  and  visited  Mrs.  Ruggles 
after  Lecture.  .  .  .  Made  some  Difficulty  to  accept  an  Election 
Sermon,  lest  it  should  be  an  obligation  on  her."  ^  Later,  he  says, 
"  I  gave  her  [the  same  lady]  Mr.  Moodey's  Election  Sermon  [for 
1721]  Marbled,  with  her  name  written  in  it."  ^ 

It  may  be  mentioned  incidentally  that  in  Colman's  sermon  for 
1723  is  an  interesting  notice  of  Thomas  Hollis  and  of  his  gifts  to 
the  College. 

Joseph  Sewall,  son  of  the  Diarist,  preached  in  1724.  His  views 
of  what  Sunday-keeping  ought  to  be  seem  strict  even  for  those 
strait-laced  days.  "  And  is  not  the  Evil  Custom  of  keeping  open 
Shops  on  the  Evening  before  the  Day,  a  Prophanation  of  the  Sab- 

1  Sibley's  "  Graduates,"  iii.  325. 

-  Colman's  Election  Sermon  for  1718,  p.  40. 

8  Sewall's  Diary,  iii.  214.  *  Ibid.  iii.  291. 

8  Ihid.  iii.  291. 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  33 

bath,  which  ought  to  be  Reform'd  ? "  ^  He  attacks  some  of  the 
darling  sins  of  that  age,  rebuking  even  the  "  attending  of  Funerals 
when  no  present  Necessity  requires  it."  ^  In  1727,  Joseph  Baxter 
asks,  "  May  not  something  be  done  to  prevent  unnecessary  Jour- 
neyings  on  the  Lord's-Day ? " ^  "A  Formal  Laodicean  Indiffer- 
ency,"  and  other  symptoms  of  the  degeneracy  of  the  age,  was  the 
subject  of  Ebenezer  Thayer's  discourse  in  1725.  Sewall  says, 
"  Election-Day,  good  Wether.  Went  in  to  the  L*  Governour's 
Treat  .  .  .  Mr.  Thayer  preaches  from  Jer.  6,  8.  —  Be  instructed  O 
Jerusalem.  Dine  at  the  Exchange  Tavern  ...  I  was  sick  of  the 
Election."  *  Though  growing  old,  Sewall  still  maintains  his  inter- 
est in  the  Election  Sermon.  A  little  earlier  in  the  same  year 
he  writes,  "  I  left  3  Election  Sermons  and  3  of  Mr.  Mayhew's 
Lecture  Sermons  with  Caj)t.  Phips."  ^ 

Some  of  the  words  and  phrases  used  by  these  early  preachers 
have  interested  and  amazed  me.  What  congregation  to-day  could 
understand  such  words  as  "  epanalepsis,"  "•  horrendous,"  and 
"  aposiopesis  "  ?  Extremely  simple  language  also,  colloquialisms, 
and  even  ungrammatical  exprcF  *ions  are  frequent.  In  Breck's 
sermon  (1728)  we  lind  "  brizzils  "  for  bristles.^  Samuel  Fiske  (1731) 
speaks  of  "  the  bear  reading  of  the  Psalm." "  Many  unusual 
words  or  phrases  may  be  due  to  errors  of  the  press,  not  of  the 
preacher.  Linguistically,  few  sermons  are  more  entertaining  than 
that  stiff  and  pedantic  one  by  John  Swift  of  Framingham  in 
1732,  who  is  much  alarmed  at  certain  "  Horribilia  de  Deo  ;  "  one 
of  which  is  that  "  some  would  induce  us  to  believe  that  Hell-fire 
is  shortly  and  in  some  time  to  be  quench' d,  or  that  the  Torments 
of  Hell  are  not  everlasting."^  Harvard  College  he  calls  "that 
Primrose  of  all  His  Majesty's  Dominions  in  America.''^  ^ 

Of  Thomas  Prince's  valuable  discourse  for  1731,  nothing  need 
be  said,  except  that  in  the  Appendix  is  reprinted  a  long  extract 

1  Sewall's  Election  Sermon  for  1724,  p.  65.  2  ji^i^i  p.  qq^ 

8  Baxter's  Election  Sermon  for  1727,  p.  32. 

4  Sewall's  Diary,  iii.  356. 

6  rUd.  iii.  348. 

«  Breck's  Election  Sermon  for  1728,  p.  22. 

^  Fiske's  Election  Sermon  for  1731,  p.  10. 

8  Swift's  Election  Sermon  for  1732,  p.  23. 

9  Ihid.  p.  25. 

3 


34  THE  JVIASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

from  Stoughton's  sermon  for  1668.  Prince  suggests,  furthermore 
that  "  the  Excellent  Election  Sermons  of  Mr.  Higginson,  Mitchel, 
Stoughton,  Danforth,  Shepard,  Oakes,  Torrey,  &c.  .  .  .  might  be 
of  Publick  Service  were  they  Reprinted  and  Dispersed."  ^ 

By  numerous  implications,  it  may  be  assumed  not  only  that  the 
annual  delivery  of  the  sermon  was  a  matter  of  general  interest,  but 
also  that  it  was  well  attended.  Samuel  Wigglesworth  (1733) 
speaks  of  the  "  Vast  Assembly.''''  This  Mr.  Wigglesworth  is  watch- 
ful of  the  follies  of  his  generation,  particularly  of  its  "  Exorbitant 
Reach  after  riches." 

A  tendency  of  preachers  to  be  lachrymose  is  remarked  by 
Edward  Holyoke  in  1736,  who  says,  "  In  the  choice  of  this  Sub- 
ject, I  vary  from  many  of  my  Fathers  and  superior  Brethren,  who 
(before  me)  have  stood  in  this  Desk  upon  the  like  Occasion,  in 
that  they  have  chosen  to  discourse  of  the  Apostacy  of  this 
People  of  God,  and  drop  their  tears  over  their  Immoralities."  ^ 
But  the  next  year  Israel  Loring  makes  a  rather  sour  rejoinder, 
and  dwells  fondly  on  the  congenial  theme  "  of  the  Degeneracies, 
that  the  People  of  the  Land  are  fallen  into."  ^  It  seems  that  then 
as  now  neglect  of  public  duties  was  especially  due  to  "  Light 
Indispositions  of  Body,  small  Difficulties  of  the  Weather,  and  Dis- 
tance of  the  Way."  *  Loring  may  be  pardoned  his  platitudes,  for 
he  makes  the  creditable  suggestion  that  the  descendants  of  the 
victims  of  the  witchcraft  persecutions  be  in  some  way  indemnified 
for  injury  or  disgrace.^  Lest  he  should  here  have  shown  too  lib- 
eral a  disposition,  he  advises  in  conclusion  a  more  frequent 
"  preaching  up  the  Doctrine  of  Hell-torments."  ®  Amid  all  these 
comminations  of  the  wickedness  of  the  age,  I  notice  no  censure 
of  slavery. 

The  sermons  continue  to  be  outspoken  in  regard  to  the  finances 
of  the  Province.  In  1738  John  Webb  speaks  of  the  fluctuating 
state  of  "  our  Medium  of  Trade,"  —  meaning,  of  course,  the  paper 
currency.  Charles  Chauncy,  in  the  appendix  to  his  important 
sermon  for  1747,  quotes  the  views  of  John  Barnard  and  Nathaniel 
Appleton,  and  refers  with  candor  to  the  evil  condition  of  the  cur- 

^  Prince's  Election  Sermon  for  1731,  p.  37. 

2  Holyoke's  Election  Sonnon  for  173G,  p.  6. 

8  Lorinjr's  Election  Sermon  for  1737,  p.  1.  ^  Thid.  p.  12. 

5  Ibid.  p.  51.  «  Ibid.  p.  60. 


THE  JVIASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  35 

rency  and  the  public  bills,  esxDecially  so  far  as  this  subject  directly 
affected  the  ministers. ^  In  1749  William  Balch  refers  to  "  Our 
wretched  Paper-medium."  Finally,  in  1751,  William  Welsteed  is 
able  to  congratulate  the  public  on  a  deliverance  from  the  "  Iniqui- 
tous medium,"  which  took  place  in  1750. 

Up  to  the  period  of  the  French  and  Indian  wars  the  Province  had 
for  some  time  been  enjoying  immunity  from  political  distui-bance, 
and  as  a  result  the  clergy  had  to  fall  back  on  such  old  and  well- 
worn  themes  as  the  inviolability  of  Charter  rights,  or  ply  the 
scourge  over  social  and  moral  evils.  Mr.  John  Webb  in  1788, 
Mr.  William  Williams  in  1741,  Mr.  Nathaniel  Aj)pleton  in  1742, 
all  speak  strongly  on  the  matter  of  the  Charter ;  the  proximity 
in  point  of  time  of  the  several  sermons  on  this  subject  would  seem 
to  show  that  just  then  some  especial  danger  was  apprehended  in 
this  direction,  or  it  may  have  been  a  manifestation  of  the  Con- 
gregational party  thus  early  putting  itself  on  guard  against  the 
slow,  almost  motionless  advance  of  the  English  hierarchy  toward 
America.  This  is  overtly  alluded  to  in  Chauncy's  sermon  for 
1747,  when  he  remarks,  "  But  justice  in  rulers  should  be  seen  like- 
wise in  their  care  of  the  religious  rights  and  liberties  of  a  people. 
Not  that  they  are  to  exert  their  authorities  in  settling  articles  of 
faith^  or  iirvposing  modes  of  worship^  ^  Notwithstanding  such 
open  opinions,  there  was  not  much  in  these  sermons  which  appears 
to  foreshadow  the  coming  Revolution.  The  clergy,  as  usual,  were 
conservative  as  long  as  possible ;  and  the  people  no  doubt  approved 
Mr.  Cooper's  sentiment,  in  his  sermon  for  1740,  that  "  The  Notion 
of  Levelism  has  as  little  Foundation  in  Nature  as  in  Scripture,"  ^ 
and  that  it  was  better  "  to  pray  more  for  Rulers,  and  talk  less  against 
them."  4  The  next  year,  1741,  William  Williams  of  Weston, 
occupies  the  safer  ground  of  moral  instruction,  and  inveiglis  against 
"  Horse  trading,"  "stroling  about,"  and  other  dangers  to  the  social 
fabric.^ 

Charles    Chauncy's    fearless    addi-ess,   in    addition    to  its   free- 
dom  from   the   ordinary  commonplaces    of  Election  day  regard- 

1  See  the  Memorial  of  the  Chaunceys,  by  William  Chauncey  Fowler,  ou  the 
attitude  of  the  General  Court  in  this  matter. 
2  Chauncy's  Election  Sermon  for  1747,  p.  36. 
8  Cooper's  Election  Sermon  for  1740,  p.  6. 
4  Ibid.  p.  9. 
s  Williams's  Election  Sermon  for  1741,  p.  49. 


36  THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION    SERMONS. 

ing  the  virtues  of  Neliemiah  and  the  "  nursing  fathers "  of  the 
Province,  had  the  additional  merit  of  being  well  printed,  and 
almost  modern  in  a  far  less  frequent  use  of  capital  letters 
than  was  in  vogue  then.  This  latter  oddity  I  am  at  a  loss  to 
explain. 

In  the  opinion  of  Samuel  Pliillips,  whose  sermon  for  1750  aif orcLs 
several  glimpses  at  contemporary  affairs,  the  country  was  "exceed- 
ing all  others  in  costly  Fasliions  ;  and  for  Extravagance  in  manner 
of  Living."  ^ 

It  is  reasonably  certain  that  there  was  no  sermon  preached 
either  in  1752  or  1764,  for  in  both  those  years  small-pox  raged  in 
Boston.2 

There  are  now  dim  forebodings  of  the  democratic  uprising 
soon  to  shake  off  the  tyrannical  hand,  the  pressure  of  wliich  for 
a  long  time  has  not  been  heavy,  but  yet  steadily  increasing. 
Through  the  sermon  of  John  Cotton  of  Newton  in  1753  is  heard 
the  "Cry  of  Unrighteousness,  Oppression  and  Extortion  "  ^  in  the 
land.  It  was  a  melancholy  discourse,  not  at  all  like  that  in  1754 
by  the  still  young  Jonathan  Mayhew,  who  had  been  graduated 
only  ten  years.  Mayhew  is  bold,  fearless,  even  aggressive.  "  To 
say  the  least,"  urges  he,  "  monarchical  government  has  no  better 
foundation  in  the  oracles  of  God,  than  any  other."  *  And  again, 
"  It  is  very  strange  we  should  be  told,  at  this  time  of  day,  that 
loyalty  and  slavery  mean  the  same  thing."  ^  He  constantly  urges 
"  the  union  of  these  colonies ;  "  has  his  hit  at  the  French ;  and 
wishes  to  convert  the  Indians,^  whom  he  sees  more  and  more  com- 
ing under  the  control  of  the  missionaries  of  the  Roman  Church. 
He  dislikes  the  importation  of  foreigners,  even  of  Protestants.  Of 
Harvard  College   he   frankly  says :    "  The   state  of   our  College 

1  Phillips's  Election  Sermon  for  1750,  p.  42. 

2  "  There  were  but  three  sessions  of  the  General  Court  this  year  [1752].  The 
first  session  was  held  in  Concord,  on  account  of  the  small-pox  which  then 
prevailed  in  Boston.  On  the  fifth  of  June  the  Assembly  was  prorogued  to 
September  27th  (16th,  Old  Style),  but  was  again  prorogued,  by  proclamation, 
August  28th,  to  meet  at  Harvard  College  on  the  twenty-second  of  November 
following."  —  Province  Laios,  iii.  662,  note. 

8  Cotton's  Election  Sermon  for  1753,  p.  16. 

•*  Mayhew's  Election  Sermon  for  175i,  p.  5.  ^  /j(j_  p,  oq^ 

6  See  Dr.  Joseph  H.  Allen's  Remarks  upon  the  relations  of  the  Mayhew  family 
to  the  Indians  of  Martha's  Vineyard,  at  the  February,  1895,  Meeting,  iii.  45, 
post.     See  also  Foote's  Annals  of  Iving's  Chapel,  ii.  252,  253. 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  37 

can  neither  be  forgotten,  nor  enougli  lamented.  .  .  .  Indeed,  if 
literature  and  the  muses  chiefly  haunted  where  poverty  resides  — 
But  this  is  a  thread-bare  topic."  ^ 

Although  Samuel  Checkley  preached  in  1755,  Thomas  Smith  of 
Portland  had  been  previously  offered  and  had  declined  the  honor. 
In  his  Journal  he  says :  "  I  received  a  letter  from  the  secretary 
informing  me  that  the  Governour  and  Council  had  warned  me  to 
preach  the  Election  sermon."  ^ 

An  anxiety  consequent  upon  the  progress  of  the  French  and  In- 
dian war  was  seen  in  the  sermons  of  the  day.  Some  sermons  were 
courageous,  and  in  some  —  as,  for  instance,  in  that  of  Ebenezer 
Pemberton  (the  second  of  that  name  who  preached)  in  1757  —  fear 
was  plainly  expressed.  At  last,  in  1761,  Benjamin  Stevens's  ser- 
mon on  "  Liberty  "  celebrates  the  "  entire  conquest  of  Canada."  ^ 
Within  fifteen  years  of  the  Revolution,  it  is  strange  to  read  the 
words  of  a  preacher  extolling  George  III.  as  "  a  Prince  possessed 
of  .  .  .  amiable  virtues  and  excellent  accomplishments,"  who  will 
"protect  his  faithful  subjects  in  the  greatest  of  human  blessings, 
the  secure  enjoyment  of  their  civil  and  religious  Rights."  * 

The  rambling,  chaotic  ninety-three  pages  of  which  Thomas  Frink 
delivered  himself  in  1758  would  be  tedious  indeed  were  it  not  for 
the  peculiarities  of  the  preacher,  who  must  have  been  an  original. 
He  covers  sixty  pages  in  getting  to  his  subject,  William  III. 
The  style  is  mystical,  the  sermon  full  of  references  to  "  viols," 
the  "  millennium,"  and  the  Second  Advent.  Election  day,  in  his 
Scriptural  language,  is  "  the  happy  Day  on  which  the  Tribes  of 
the  Lord,  the  Heads  of  the  Tribes,  .  .  .  assemble  in  the  City 
of  our  Solemnities."  ^  Again  he  rhapsodizes,  "  Oh  Boston !  thy 
Beauty  is  faded  —  the  Lord  hath  taken  from  thee  —  the  Judge, 
the  Prudent,  and  the  Ancient,  the  Honourable  Man,  and  the 
Councellor  —  Help  Lord,  for  the  godly  Man  ceaseth  —  and  where 
is  the  Man  to  be  found  among  j'ou  to  stand  in  the  Gap  ?  "  ^  This 
refers  to  Secretary  Josiah  Willard,  who  died  in  1756,  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  Secretary  Oliver. 

This  pretentious  discourse  was  followed  in  the  next  year,  1759, 

1  Mayhew's  Election  Sermon  for  1754,  p.  28. 

2  Thomas  Smith's  Journal  (Willis's  edition,  1849),  p.  159. 

^  Stevens's  Election  Sermon  for  1761,  p.  6.  *  Ih'ul.  p.  57. 

^  Frink's  Election  Sermon  for  1758,  p.  1.  ^  Ibid.  p.  85. 


38  THE   IMASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

by  a  brief,  colorless,  but  wholly  irreproachable,  effort  by  Joseph 
Parsons. 

Abraham  Williams,  in  1762,  speaks  boldly  of  "  all  men  being 
naturally  equal,"  and  mentions  "  Attempts  of  domestic  Traitors, 
arbitrary  bigotted  Tyrants."  ^  It  is  significant  that  the  titlepage 
does  not  mention  either  governor  or  lieutenant-governor,  as  it  was 
the  almost  invariable  custom  to  do  up  to  that  time.  Needless  to 
say,  Williams  did  not  receive  the  honor  of  a  reprint  in  London,  as 
did  Andi-ew  Eliot  in  1765.  Eliot  praised  the  British  Constitution 
as  the  most  perfect  form  of  civil  government.  Of  Bernard  he 
speaks  highly,  but  refers  to  Acts  passed  "  that  seem  hard  on  the 
Colonies."  ^  He  furthermore  asserts  that  "  there  is  perhaps  not  a 
man  to  be  found  among  us,  who  would  wish  to  be  independent 
on  our  mother-country."  ^  He  attributed  most  of  the  prevailing 
trouble  to  excessive  drinking.* 

What  the  good  ruler  ought  to  do  is  so  elaborately  set  forth  by 
Ebenezer  Bridge,  in  1767,  that  he  would  seem  to  be  referring  to 
Bernard.  Daniel  Shute,  in  1768,  on  the  other  hand,  was  conserv- 
ative, and  meant  to  be  conciliatory ;  but  in  the  next  year  Jason 
Haven  remarks  that  "  Mutual  confidences  and  affection,  between 
Great-Britain  and  these  Colonies,  I  speak  it  with  grief,  seems  to 
be  in  some  measure  lost."  ^  In  this  year,  1769,  Joseph  Jackson 
had  been  asked  to  preach  and  had  declined. 

Down  to  the  period  immediately  preceding  the  Revolution,  the 
Election  Sermons  for  many  years  (and  this  was  true  of  them  for 
some  years  before  they  were  discontinued)  had  been  preached  per- 
functorily, if  ably.  The  time  had  come  when  they  were  to  play 
an  active  part,  and  the  spoken  word  from  the  political  pulpit  was 
to  help  sway  men's  decisions.  Soon  after  1766  the  Governor 
found  himself  without  friendly  support  of  the  Council,  which 
as  fast  as  possible  was  filled  by  men  favorable  to  the  coming 
order  of  things.     It  is  unnecessary  here  to  explain  the  effort  to 

1  Williams's  Election  Sermon  for  1762,  p.  19. 

2  Eliot's  Election  Sermon  for  1765,  p.  52.  ^  Ibid.  p.  53. 

*  This  is  the  Andrew  Eliot  whose  Letters  to  Thomas  HoUis  (3  Massachu- 
setts Historical  Collections,  iv.  398-461)  are  so  well  known  for  their  value 
among  pre-revolutionary  documents.  See  other  similar  letters  of  his  in  Massar 
chusetts  Historical  Society's  Proceedings,  xvi.  281  et  seq. 

5  Haven's  Election  Sermon  for  1769,  p.  48. 


THE   ]\1ASSACHTTSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  39 

secure  a  royally-appointed  Council  which  should  side  with  the 
Governor.  This  objectionable  scheme  was  agreed  to  by  the  Min- 
istry in  1774 ;  but  affairs  were  then  prceter  curam.  The  Gover- 
nor's power  of  appointment  of  military  officers,  and  of  judicial 
officers  with  the  consent  of  the  Council,  and  his  power  of  negation 
of  all  others  chosen  by  the  General  Court  were  conferred  in  the 
charter  of  1691.  Moreover,  the  people  and  the  clergy  were 
jealous  for  all  the  religious  privileges  which  had  been  nominally 
granted  them.  The  clergy  certainly  had  not  forgotten  that,  on 
the  restoration  of  Charles  II.,  four  Commissioners,  of  whom  any 
two  or  three  were  to  be  a  quorum,  had  been  appointed  to  look  out 
for  "  the  reputation  and  credit  of  the  Christian  religion"  in  New 
England.!  James's  man,  Andi'os,  followed  this  Commission,  and 
henceforth  there  was  more  or  less  of  this  "  looking  up  "  of  the  polit- 
ical as  well  as  of  the  religious  interests  of  the  Englisli  hierarchy. 
Hints  of  this  subtle  influence  of  a  force  working  contrary  to  the 
well-established  religious  interests  of  New  England  are  not  want- 
ing, to  one  who  reads  aright,  throughout  these  sermons.  Some- 
thing more  tangible  than  hints  appears  in  the  sermons  by  Charles 
Chauncy  and  by  Jonathan  Mayhew,  especially  in  that  one  by 
the  latter,  on  the  death  of  Charles  I.  William  Gordon  intelli- 
gently explains  the  position  of  the  Election  preachers  on  this 
matter  as  follows  :  "  The  ministers  of  New  England  being  mostly 
congregational,  are  from  that  circumstance,  in  a  professional  way 
more  attached  and  habituated  to  the  principles  of  liberty  than 
if  they  had  spiritual  superiors  to  lord  it  over  them,  and  were  in 
hopes  of  possessing  in  their  turn,  through  the  gift  of  government, 
the  seat  of  power.  They  oppose  arbitrary  rule  in  civil  concerns 
from  the  love  of  freedom,  as  well  as  from  a  desire  of  guarding 
against  its  introduction  into  religious  matters."  ^  What  Gordon 
says  is  particularly  interesting  and  important ;  for  it  is,  so  far  as 
I  know,  the  first  recognition  of  any  historic  value  in  the  Elec- 
tion Sermon.      "  To  the  Pulpit,  the  Puritan  Pulpit,  we  owe  the 

1  Thornton's  Pulpit,  of  the  American  Revolution,  p.  175. 

No  one  has  probed  more  cautiously  or  more  accurately  to  discover  the  atti- 
tude of  the  hierarchy  previous  to  the  Revolution,  tlian  has  tlie  lion.  ]\Iellen 
Chamberlain  in  several  of  his  publications,  but  particularly  in  his  Address  on 
"John  Adams." 

2  History  of  the  Revolution,  i.  418,  419. 


40  THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

moral  force  which  won  our  Independence,"  remarks  Thornton,^ 
who  does  full  justice  to  the  ability  and  courage  of  the  ministry, 
and  has  included  in  his  work  several  of  the  strongest  discourses 
of  this  series. 

Concerning  the  theoretical  principles  of  political  science,  there 
is  a  remarkable  unanimity  among  the  patriotic  sermons  at  the 
period  of  the  Revolution  and  also  among  those  for  a  few  preceding 
years.  All  bear  the  unmistakable  traces  of  Locke's  Essay  on  Civil 
Government.  Certain  it  is  that  for  some  time  the  preachers,  al- 
most without  exception,  had  been  expressing  belief  in  the  natural 
equality  of  man,  and  in  the  human  origin  of  all  forms  of  government, 
though  generally  ending  their  arguments  with  an  apostrophe  to 
the  glories  of  the  British  Constitution.  The  precise  expression, 
"All  men  are  born  free  and  equal,"  was  inserted  in  the  Massa- 
chusetts Declaration  of  Rights  of  1780  by  Judge  John  Lowell, 
but  the  idea  involved  therein  was  not  infrequently  expressed  in 
these  Sermons.  That  of  Samuel  Cooke  for  1770  contains  the 
essential  doctrines  of  the  Declaration  of  Rights  and  of  the  Revo- 
lution. Thornton  reprints  it  with  the  title,  "  The  True  Principles 
of  Civil  Government."  This  preacher,  who  afterward  delivered 
a  sermon  on  the  battle-field  at  Lexington  in  1777,  for  "a  Me- 
morial of  the  Bloody  Tragedy,  barbarously  acted,  by  a  party  of 
British  Troops,"  was  obliged  to  deliver  his  Election  Sermon  at 
Cambridge,''^  and  not  at  the  usual  place,  —  the  Town  House,  or 
probably  by  that  time  the  Old  South  meeting-house,  in  Boston. 
This  was,  no  doubt,  as  Thornton  says,  by  reason  of  a  "show  of 
despotism;  "  but  it  did  not  intimidate  the  speaker  from  referring  to 
the  multiplying  of  "lucrative  offices,"  and  to  subordinate  offices 
"  made  the  surest  step  to  wealth  and  ease."  ^  He  refers  to  the 
disclosure  by  Agent  Bollan  of  the  correspondence  *  with  the  min- 
istry, and  calls  the  Charter,  not  "  an  act  of  grace,  but  a  compact."  ^ 
Of  Cooke's  words  Thornton  says :  "  Governor  Hutchinson  cannot 

^  Pulpit  of  the  American  Revolution,  p.  xxxviii. 

2  At  the  "Meeting-House.  .  ,  .  After  Divine  Service  the  Procession  returned 
to  Harvard-Hall,  where  an  Entertainment  was  provided."  —  Massachusetts 
Gazette,  4  June,  1770. 

8  Cooke's  Election  Sermon  for  1770,  p.  16. 

*  Ibid.  p.  20. 

6  Ibid.  p.  33. 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  41 

have  listened  to  this  sermon,  and  its  implied  parallel  of  the  times 
of  Andros  with  his  own  official  period,  without  discomfort  and 
perhaps  regret."  ^  The  Revolution  was  not  yet  ripe,  even  in  the 
imagination  of  the  fearless  minister,  who  concludes  with  the  assur- 
ance that  the  people  "glory  in  the  British  constitution,  and  are 
abhorrent,  to  a  man,  of  the  most  distant  thought  of  withdi-awing 
their  allegiance  from  their  gracious  Sovereign,  and  becoming  an 
independent  state."  ^ 

In  this  year,  besides  this  regular  ceremony  at  Cambridge,  there 
was  an  independent  meeting  at  Boston  before  which  Charles 
Chauncy  preached.  Chauncy's  sermon  is  included  in  the  fii'st 
published  list  of  the  Election  Sermons  in  1794.  Its  title  explains 
the  reason  of  its  delivery.^ 

John  Tucker  preached  at  Cambridge  in  1771,  and  was  more 
conservative  in  his  remarks  than  his  immediate  predecessor.  He 
refers,  however,  to  the  "  absurd  and  exploded  doctrines  of  passive 
obedience,  and  non-resistance."  *  Again,  it  is  insinuated  that  just 
rulers  are  "  not  apt,  in  a  pet,  to  desert  the  common  cause."  ^  The 
old  observance  of  directly  addressing  the  Governor  at  the  close  of 
the  sermon  was  carried  out  this  year,  "  tho'  it  has  not  been  the 
standing  custom  of  late."  ^  In  the  earlier  days  the  ministry  also 
were  formally  addressed  and  exhorted,  just  after  the  address  to 
the  Governor  and  Lieutenant-Governor. 

"  There  is  not,  I  suppose,  a  native  of  this  Province,  who  does 
not  bear  unfeigned  loyalty  to  King  George  the  third"  "^  exclaimed 
Moses  Parsons  in  his  sermon  for  1772.     Some  grievances  are  ad- 


^  Pulpit  of  the  American  Revolution,  p.  177. 

2  Cooke's  Election  Sermon  for  1770,  p.  45. 

3  Trust  in  God,  the  Duty  of  a  People  in  a  Day  of  Trouble.  A  sermon 
preached,  May  30th,  1770.  At  the  request  of  a  great  number  of  Gentlemen, 
friends  to  the  Liberties  of  North  America,  who  were  desirous,  notwithstand- 
ing the  removal  of  the  Massachusetts  General-Court  (unconstitutionally  as  they 
judged)  to  Cambridge,  that  God  might  be  acknowledged  in  that  house  of 
worship  at  BOSTON,  in  which  our  tribes,  from  the  days  of  our  fathers,  have 
annually  sought  to  him  for  direction,  previous  to  the  choice  of  his  Majesty's 
Council.  By  Charles  Chauncy,  D.D.  Boston  :  printed  by  Daniel  Kneelaud,  for 
Thomas  Leverett,  in  Corn-Hill.     1770. 

*  Tucker's  Election  Sermon  for  1771,  p.  19.  ^  Ibid.  p.  45. 

6  Ihid.  p.  26. 

'  Parsons's  Election  Sermon  for  1772,  p.  23. 


42  THE  MASSAi^HUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

mitted  by  Mm,  to  whom  it  seemed  that  the  "  day  is  become  gloomy 
and  dark,  and  the  waters  are  troubled."  ^  In  the  midst  of  these 
disturbed  elements,  the  preacher  for  1773,  the  Rev.  Charles  Turner, 
found  time  to  cry  out  against  "the  immoral  practice  of  gaming 
with  lucrative  purposes,  chiefly  common  among  persons  in  that 
which  they  call  high  life."  "Amazing  profanity,  especially  in 
maritime  places,"  ^  is  likewise  condemned. 

In  1774,  for  the  last  time  in  these  annals,  the  annual  sermon 
was  delivered  before  "  His  Excellency,"  then,  of  course,  Gage, 
and  before  "  the  Honorable  His  Majesty's  Council."  Gad  Hitch- 
cock, the  preacher,  was  the  first,  I  believe,  to  mention  the  "Amer- 
ican cause."  ^  He,  too,  held  that  "  In  a  state  of  nature  men  are 
equal."  *  Some  courage  must  have  been  requisite  to  speak  as  he 
did  of  "  wicked  rulers,  such  as  Nero,  and  others  of  later  date."  ^ 
The  tardy  determination  of  the  Ministry  to  have  a  royally  ap- 
pointed Council  is  firmly  met  by  this  patriot.  Choice  of  Council, 
he  declares,  is  "  a  privilege,  which  we  never  have  forfeited,  and 
we  are  resolved  we  never  will."  ^ 

A  reprint  of  this  interesting  sermon  was  made  in  1885  at  the 
expense  of  the  great-granddaughter  of  Gad  Hitchcock,  Mrs.  Abby 
L.  (Hitchcock)  Tyler,  of  which  only  a  few  copies  were  struck  off. 

It  has  been  customary  to  say  that  there  were  two  Election  Ser- 
mons preached  in  1775  —  one  by  Samuel  Langdon,*"  President  of 
Harvard,  "  Before  the  Honorable  Congress  of  the  Colony  of  the 
Massachusetts-Bay  .  .  .  Assembled  at  Watertown,  31st  Day  of 
May,  1775.  Being  the  Anniversary  fixed  by  CHARTER  for  the 
Election  of  Counsellors ;  "  the  other  by  William  Gordon,  the  his- 
torian of  the  Revolution,  "  before  the  Honorable  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, on  the  Day  intended  for  the  Choice  of  Counsellors, 
Agreeable  to  the  Advice  of  the  Continental  Congress,"  on  19  July, 
1775.     Langdon's  sermon  is  doubtless  to  be  considered  as  belong- 


^  Parsons's  Election  Sermon  for  1772,  p.  17. 

2  Turner's  Election  Sermon  for  1773,  p.  41. 

'  Hitchcock's  Election  Sermon  for  1774,  p.  45. 

*  Ihid.  p.  20.  6  jud.  p.  13. 

«  Ibid.  p.  42. 

'  There  have  been  two  reprints  of  Langdon's  sermon,  —  one  in  Thornton's 
Pulpit  of  the  American  Revolution,  and  the  other  in  "  The  Patriot  Preachers  of 
the  American  Revolution,"  1860. 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS  ELECTION   SERMONS.  43 

ing  to  the  regular  series.  It  was  delivered  at  the  time  usual  to 
this  ceremony,  and  was  sent,  by  special  vote,  to  each  minister  in 
the  Colony,  and  to  each  member  of  the  Congress.  Of  it  Gage  said : 
"  To  complete  the  horrid  prophanation  of  terms  and  of  ideas,  the 
name  of  God  has  been  introduced  in  the  pulpit  to  excite  and  jus- 
tify devastation  and  massacre."  ^ 

Langdon  was  a  violent  Whig,  but  not  popular  as  a  man  or  as 
President  of  the  College.^  In  this  sermon  he  asserts  that  blood 
was  shed  at  Lexington  while  the  inhabitants  "  were  actually  com- 
plying with  the  command  to  disperse."  ^  He  also  echoes  the  accu- 
sation common  at  that  time  that  an  attempt  was  making  to 
establish  Popery  in  the  British  dominions.* 

Gordon's  sermon  °  held  that  the  war,  as  a  means  of  establishing 
liberty,  was  a  punishment  for  the  moral  delinquencies  of  the  colo- 
nies, which  might  have  separated  peacefully  had  they  been  wor- 
thier. His  patriotism,  however,  was  undoubted,  when  he  remarks, 
"  No  member  can  consistently  take  his  place,  or  be  admitted  to  sit 
in  the  house  of  Assembly,  who  hesitates  about  setting  up  govern- 
ment." ^  Gordon  spoke  again,  on  4  July,  1777,  before  the  General 
Court,  although  Samuel  Webster  preached  regularly  at  the  Elec- 
tion in  that  year. 

Most  of  the  sermons  of  this  time  are  noticeable  for  directness 
and  simplicity,  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  fine  theorizing  and  theolo- 
gizing of  many  of  the  earlier  efforts ;  but  Samuel  West,  in  1776, 
"  before  the  Honorable  Council,"  delivered  a  long  and  rather  pon- 
derous apology  for  the  state  of  affairs.  Although  his  reasoning 
was  too  abstruse  for  the  occasion,  his  patriotism  was  sound;  he 
even  enunciated  the  democratic  idea  that  the  popular  judgment  is 
always  right."  West's  sermon  was  preached  at  the  Old  Brick 
meeting-house,  on  the  site  which  had  been  dedicated  to  the  wor- 
ship of  God  ever  since  1640.^ 

1  Quoted  by  Thoi'iiton,  p.  255,  note. 

2  Patriot  Preachers,  p.  50. 

8  Laiigdon's  Election  Sermon  for  1775,  p.  8. 
*  Ibid.  pp.  28,  29. 

5  This  sermon  bears  the  iinprint,  "Watertown:  printed  and  sold  by  Ben- 
jamin Edes.     1775." 

8  Gordon's  Sermon  of  19  July,  1775,  p.  27. 

'  West's  Election  Sermon  for  1776,  p.  27. 

8  This  site  is  now  (1894)  occupied  by  the  Rogers  Building. 


44  THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

Samuel  Webster,  in  1777,  said,  among  other  excellent  things, 
"  Let  elections  of  the  Legislators  be  freqiient  ;  Let  monopolies,  and 
all  kinds  and  degrees  of  oppression  be  carefully  guarded  against."  ^ 

Jolin  Adams  has  plainly  declared  that  all  men  in  the  American 
Revolution  were  not  heroes ;  so,  too,  in  1778,  the  Reverend  Samuel 
Phillips  Payson  speaks  of  the  small  contemporary  criticism  busy 
in  his  hearing.  "  The  growls  of  avarice  and  curses  of  clowns,  will 
generally  be  heard,  when  the  public  liberty  and  safety  call  for 
more  generous  and  costly  exertions."  ^  Thus  early  he  proposes 
that  the  General  Assembly  "form  and  establish  upon  generous 
principles  a  society  of  arts  and  sciences."  ^ 

The  liberalizing  tendency  of  the  great  contest  can  be  seen  even 
in  the  relatively  slight  matter  of  according  the  honor  of  deliver- 
ing the  Election  Sermon,  an  honor  which  hitherto  had  seldom  gone 
outside  of  Congregational  ranks.  In  1779,  Samuel  Stillman, 
preacher  of  the  First  Baptist  Church  in  Boston,  was  chosen.  He 
urged  strongly  a  Bill  of  Rights,  and  maintained  the  "  natural 
equality  of  all  men."  *  His  doctrine  was  sturdily  democratic,  and 
conceded  only  temporal  power  to  all  magistrates,  and  would  seem 
not  to  have  favored  what  is  now  somewhat  cantingly  termed  put- 
ting "  God  in  the  Constitution." 

For  the  last  time  before  the  "  Honorable  Council "  the  regular 
Election  Sermon  was  preached  by  Simeon  Howard  in  1780. 
Although  in  the  midst  of  an  eventful  struggle,  the  preacher  feels 
called  on  solemnly  to  admonish  the  country  against  the  "  spirit  of 
infidelity,  selfishness,  luxury,  and  dissatisfaction  which  so  deeply 
marks  our  our  present  manners."  ^ 

Samuel  Cooper,  he  who  died  in  1783,  and  who  had  previously 
preached  in  1756,  discoursed  also  in  1780  before  John  Hancock, 
the  Senate,  and  House,  "  Being  the  day  of  the  Commencement  of 
the  Constitution,  and  Inauguration  of  the  New  Government." 
This  was,  as  appears,  the  day  of  general  election  under  the  new 
Constitution,  so  that  here  is  a  second  instance  of  two  Election 
Sermons  in  one  year.  It  has  been  proposed,  rather  senselessly  it 
seems,  to  count  into  the  total  the  two  extra  sermons  for  1775  and 

1  AVebster's  Election  Sermon  for  1777,  p.  30. 

2  Payson's  Election  Sermon  for  1778,  p.  14,  ^  /^j^;,  p.  37^  note. 
*  Stillman's  Election  Sermon  for  1779,  p.  8. 

^  Howard's  Election  Sermon  for  1780,  p.  47. 


THE  ISIASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SEKMOXS.  45 

1780,  in  order  to  fill  up  the  numerical  gap  of  the  years  1752  and 
1764.  Cooper's  effort  was  a  model  of  the  patriotic  sermon,  and  was 
full  of  that  dignity  which  in  some  way  we  have  associated  with 
many  of  the  sayings,  writings,  and  actions  of  the  nobler  characters 
of  our  Revolutionary  era.  The  preacher  was  then  approaching 
mature  age  ;  his  Artillery  sermon  had  been  delivered  when  he  was 
but  twenty-six  years  of  age,  and  his  first  Election  Sermon  when  he 
was  thirty-one.  This  later  sermon  of  1780  had  the  distinction  of 
being  translated  into  Dutch,  and  was  inserted  in  the  Verzame- 
ling  van  stukken  tot  de  derticn  Vereenigde  Staeten  van  Noord- America 
betrekkeUjJc "  (Leyden,  1781). 

Of  the  impassioned  appeal  to  patriotism,  well  panoplied  with 
italics,  exclamation-points,  and  other  weapons  from  the  typograph- 
ical armory,  the  sermon  of  Jonas  Clark  of  Lexington  for  1781 
is  a  good  specimen. 

Not  often  did  our  ancestors  venture  away  from  the  Scriptures 
to  find  elsewhere  a  quotation  to  grace  diction.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
Zabdiel  Adams,  in  quoting  "  vanish  like  the  baseless  fabrick  of  a 
vision,"  1  was  the  first  in  tliis  list  of  preachers  to  borrow  from 
Shakespeare.  He  misquotes,  to  be  sure,  but  the  attempt  was  com- 
mendable. Several  phrases  used  by  tliis  preacher  are  worth  re- 
membering ;  as  when,  for  instance,  urging  continuation  of  the  war, 
he  exclaims ;  "  It  is  better  to  be  free  among  the  dcad^  than  slaves 
among  the  living."  ^ 

Moses  Hemmenway  of  Wells,  Maine,  who  preached  in  1784, 
was  a  rather  eccentric  person,  and  this  fact  may  possibly  havi 
caused  the  apparent  anxiety  on  the  part  of  the  Legislature  that  he 
should  decline  liis  invitation  to  preach.^ 

No  sooner  was  the  Revolution  Avell  past  than  the  "  sins  of  the 
day  "  again  began  to  be  attacked  with  undiminished  vigor.  Joseph 
Lyman   especially,  in  1787,  waxes  very  hot  over  popular  vices. 


*  Adams's  Election  Sermon  for  1782,  p.  49.  2  md  p  58_ 

3  Resolve  requesting  the  Governor  and  Council  to  appoint  a  gentleman  to 

preach  the  election  sermon,  in  case  that  ]\Ir.  Hemmenway  declines.     25  March, 

1784. 

Whereas  the  great  distance  of  the  Rev.  Moses  Hemmenway,  chosen  by  the 

House  to  preach  upon  the  next  annual  election,  has  prevented  his  giving  his 

answer,  .  .  .  Resolved :  etc.      (Resolves  of   the  General  Court,  March,  1784, 

No.  ccii.,  p.  151.) 


46  THE  IMASSACHTJSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

His  sermon  likewise  reviews  at  some  length  Shays's  Rebellion, 
which  had  ended  early  in  that  year. 

The  declination  of  Joseph  Lathrop  to  preach  in  1793  is  a  matter 
of  regret ;  for  had  he  accepted,  the  one  blot  on  the  escutcheon  of 
our  Election  Sermons  had  probably  never  been.  As  it  happens, 
however,  the  only  instance  of  dishonesty  in  connection  with  this 
custom  is  to  be  found  in  the  sermon  of  Samuel  Parker  of  Trinity 
Church,  Boston,  for  that  year.  A  large  part  of  the  matter  of 
Parker's  address  was  taken  bodily  and  without  acknowledgment 
from  Jacques  Saurin's  "•  Harmony  of  Religion  and  Civil  Polity," 
which  may  be  found  in  the  fourth  volume  of  the  edition  of  Saurin's 
Sermons  in  seven  volumes. 

The  preachers  at  this  period,  in  common  with  all  New  England, 
were  throwing  up  their  hands  in  horror  at  the  excesses  of  the 
French  Revolution,  and  were  trying  to  stay  its  influence  on  this 
side  of  the  ocean.  As  a  matter  of  course,  this  anti-Gallic  senti- 
ment was  that  of  strong  Federalists,  and  came  from  such  men 
as  John  Mellen,  who  preached  in  1797,  and  who  speaks  of  John 
Adams  as  "  that  highly  respectable  character."  ^  It  was  Adams 
himself  who  referred  to  the  Vice-Presidency  as  a  "  respectable 
situation."  ^ 

A  Constant  Reader  wrote  to  the  "  New  England  Telegraph  and 
Eclectic  Review  "  in  1836  (II.  337-351),  "  It  is  long  since  Dr. 
Emmons's  Election  Sermon,  preached  at  Boston  in  1798,  was  out 
of  print,"  and  requested  a  reprint.  Moses  Thacher,  the  editor  of 
this  Review,  accordingly  printed  the  discourse  entire. 

The  century  was  very  young  when  Aaron  Bancroft  began 
the  familiar  cry,  "  O  tempora ! "  He  found  more  virtue  in 
the  early  settlers,  and  among  them  greater  purity  in  elections. 
That  voting  was  honest  is  doubtless  true,  although  in  the  Colony 
Records  it  may  be  seen  that  even  in  our  golden  era  measures  were 
taken  against  throwing  an  excess  of  beans  as  ballots.  In  1803 
Reuben  Puffer  predicts  the  downfall  of  the  Republic,  —  an  idea 
not  previously  advanced  in  tliese  sermons,  but  yet  the  natural  out- 
come of  extravagant  laudation  of  the  past  from  the  pulpit.  In  the 
next  year,  1804,  Samuel  Kendal  threw  doubts  on  tlie  doctrine  of 
equality.     In  1806  and  1808  the  preachers  are  a  little  optimistic 

1  Mellen's  Election  Serinou  for  1797,  p.  32. 

2  Morse's  "John  Adams,"  p.  248. 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  47 

in  their  views,  —  one  of  them,  Thomas  Allen,  finding,  even  in  the 
face  of  the  embargo,  that  this  country  is  "  not  the  abode  of  wretch- 
edness." ^     This  preacher  is  also  refreshingly  brief. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  explain  that  most  of  the  worthy  gentle- 
men who  had  preached  for  some  time  were  Federahsts,  and  that 
from  1801  to  1806  their  sermons  were  delivered  in  the  audience  of 
that  unwavering  partisan,  Caleb  Strong.  They  had  the  comforting 
assurance  that  their  utterances  were  indorsed  by  the  "respecta- 
bility" of  the  State,  and  consequently  out  of  the  abundance  of 
their  hearts  their  moutlis  spake.  But  there  is  a  limit  even  to  the 
license  tolerated  in  an  Election  Sermon,  for  although  the  custom  be- 
gan with  some  very  free  speech,  it  was  terminated  doubtless  because 
of  over-indulgence  in  the  same  privilege.  David  Osgood,  in  1809, 
must  have  been  peculiarly  exasperating  to  Republican  listeners,  so 
much  so  perhaps  that  they  were  the  more  ready  to  take  quick  offence 
if  due  cause  was  given.  The  cause  did  arise  when  Elijah  Parish  of 
Byfield  uttered  words,  at  the  election  in  1810,  full  of  that  pecu- 
liar vehemence  which  such  men  as  Timothy  Pickering  and  his 
sympathizers  so  dearly  loved.  There  vras,  however,  nothing  more 
violent  in  Parish's  words  than  in  parts  of  Osgood's  address.  Parish 
calls  the  government  atheistical,  and  an  ally  of  Napoleon,  —  Na- 
poleon of  course  being  the  veritable  Antichrist  to  a  good  Federal- 
ist. He  continues :  "  The  Chieftain  of  Europe,  drunk  with  blood, 
casts  a  look  upon  us ;  he  raises  his  voice,  more  terrible  than  the 
midnight  yell  of  savages,  at  the  doors  of  our  forefathers."  ^  So 
little  was  all  this  to  the  taste  of  the  Legislature,  that  no  majority 
was  found  to  ask  the  plain-spoken  minister  for  a  copy  of  his 
sermon  for  the  press ;  he  accordingly  was  under  the  necessity, 
unique  in  the  later  annals  of  this  subject,  of  printing  at  his  own 
and  his  subscribers'  expense.  The  pamphlet  had  the  unusual  honor 
of  two  editions.  If  one  recalls  the  impressive  lessons  upon  the 
duty  of  obedience  to  rulers,  and  then  reads  the  vilifications  of  those 
in  authority  in  the  Election  discourses  of  this  period,  the  thoroughly 
bad  temper  of  Massachusetts,  exhibited  just  before  and  during  the 
war  of  1812,  may  be  plainly  understood.  Here  may  be  seen  a 
reflection  of  the  true  spirit  of  the  times,  and  that  spirit  History  will 
decide  was  bad.     Not  all  these  sermons,  however,  wliich  relate  to 

1  Allen's  Election  Sermon  for  1808,  p.  13. 

2  Parish's  Election  Sermon  for  1810,  p.  21. 


48  THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SEKMOISS. 

the  events  preceding  and  dming  the  war  of  1812  are  of  question- 
able patriotism.  Edmund  Foster  in  1812  was  on  the  side  of  the 
government  and  in  favor  of  the  war;  but  what  can  be  said  of 
James  Flint's  defence  of  England  in  1815,  or  of  liis  referring  to 
the  taking  of  Wasliington  as  "  the  attack  of  the  enemy  upon  the 
immediate  seat  and  citadel  of  improvidence  and  imbecility,  the 
head-quarters  of  the  redoubtable  heroes  of  Bladensburg  ? "  ^ 

Among  many  excellent  discourses,  it  has  seemed  to  me  that 
the  one  delivered  by  William  Jenks  in  1820  was  exceptionally  elo- 
quent. Tliis  was  the  year  of  the  formation  of  the  new  State  of 
Maine,  and  the  preacher  was  from  Bath.  The  rather  unusual  for- 
tune of  two  editions  befell  Daniel  Sharp's  sermon  for  1824,  perhaps 
by  reason  of  liis  cheerful  vaticinations  for  the  future  of  the  Nation. 
The  tone  of  Moses  Stuart's  sermon  for  1827  was  thoroughly  demo- 
cratic ;  he  was  followed  the  next  year,  in  an  address  of  commend- 
able brevity,  by  James  Walker,  who  spoke  again  in  1863,  forty- 
nine  years  after  his  graduation  at  Harvard.  In  1830,  Channing 
spoke  on  "  Spiritual  Freedom,"  —  a  theme  congenial  to  him. 

The  simple  and  almost  familiar  discourse  of  Leonard  Withing- 
ton  in  1831  is  ref resiling  after  much  that  was  stately,  not  to 
say  stilted.  He  speaks  at  some  length  of  the  former  influence 
of  the  clergy;  and  of  the  Revolution  he  says  frankly,  "We  lost 
more  in  our  morals,  in  the  single  war  of  the  Revolution,  than  we 
ever  lost  before."  ^ 

In  1832,  when  Paul  Dean  preached,  an  important  change  was 
made  in  the  date  of  Election  Day ;  whereas  it  was  formerly  the  first 
M'^ednesday  after  Easter  term,  it  was  now  appointed  for  the  first 
W  ednesday  in  January,  and  so  continued  thereafter. 

Next  to  the  "  insidious  wiles  of  foreign  influence,"  of  the  Fare- 
well Address,  the  two  chief  causes  which,  the  Jeremiahs  tell  us, 
are  finally  to  destroy  tliis  republic,  are  party  spirit  and  the  indif- 
ference of  citizens  to  public  affairs.  "  The  Duties  and  Dangers  of 
those  who  are  born  Free,"  by  William  B.  O.  Peabody  in  1833, 
speaks  as  if  these  were  common  political  shortcomings  of  that 
date. 

After  the  democratic  fervor  in  most  of  these  sermons,  Jonathan 
M.  Wainwright's  sermon  for  1835,  on  the  "  Inequality  of  individual 

^  Flint's  Election  Sermon  for  1815,  p.  18. 

2  Withington's  Election  Sermon  for  1831,  p.  21. 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS  ELECTION   SERMONS.  49 

wealth  the  ordinance  of  Providence  and  essential  to  civilization," 
must  have  been  annoying  to  public  taste.  At  this  period  there  was 
much  talk  about  a  prevailing  tendency  towards  communism;  to 
what  particular  "  craze  "  reference  was  had  I  do  not  know.  That 
there  was  such  a  disturbance  is  evident  from  Wainwright's  sermon, 
and  likewise  from  that  of  Andrew  Bigelow  in  1836,  —  altogether  a 
"  respectable  "  discourse,  and  not  at  all  like  its  great  predecessors 
of  the  Revolutionary  period.  Bigelow  preached  before  Samuel  T. 
Armstrong,  who  was  not  only  Acting  Governor,  but  also  at  the  same 
time  Lieutenant-Governor  and  Mayor  of  Boston.  His  sermon  con- 
tains a  list  of  Election  preachers ;  as  also  did  David  Osgood's  in 
1809. 

Although  preachers  may  have  overestimated  its  effects,  it  is  still 
true  that  party  feeling  was  then  running  very  high,  —  so  liigh  that 
many  ministers  felt  it  to  be  their  duty  to  try  to  abate  the  political 
fever,  rather  than  repeat  the  indiscreet  zeal  of  the  pulpit  in  the 
times  of  1812.  The  remarks  of  a  pious  and  thoughtful  man  like 
John  Codman,  in  liis  sermon  for  1840,  are  well  worth  reading. 

Samuel  C.  Jackson  was  well  known  for  his  outspokenness,  and 
by  reason  of  it  he  almost  shared  the  fate  of  Elijah  Parish  in  1810. 
His  sermon  for  1843  narrowly  escaped  the  condemnation  of  the 
Senate.  Dr.  Park,  in  his  "Memorial  of  Jackson,"  gives  an  account 
of  this  episode,  and  I  shall  repeat  it :  — • 

"  He  published  a  few  terse  essays  for  the  newspapers  and  only 
four  sermons.  One  of  these  sermons  illustrates  his  characteristic 
style  of  preaching,  not  into  the  air,  nor  to  the  winds,  but  to  the 
men  and  women  before  liim.  .  .  .  Seldom,  if  ever,  has  an  Election 
sermon  produced  a  greater  excitement.  The  first  printed  edition 
of  it  (three  thousand  copies)  was  soon  exhausted,  and  a  second 
edition  soon  published.  Some  of  the  newspapers  printed  copious 
extracts  from  it,  and  characterized  it  as  'vigorous,'  'bold,'  'elo- 
quent,' 'masterly,'  'honest,'  'independent;'  others  condemned  it. 
Eight  of  the  senators  opposed,  and  thirteen  favored,  the  Senate's 
vote  of  thanks  to  the  preacher.  On  reading  the  sermon  at  the 
present  day,  one  finds  it  difficult  to  imagine  the  reasons  for  such 
violence  of  opposition  to  it ;  but  on  com|)aring  it  with  the  political 
evils  which  were  rife  at  the  time  of  its  delivery,  one  sees  that  it 
was  a  sermon  for  that  particular  time.  .  .  ."  ^ 

1  Memorial  of  Samuel  C  Jackson,  by  Edwards  A.  Park,  Andover,  1871,  p.  18. 

4 


50  THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

There  is  certainly  an  astonishing  dearth  of  amenities  in  such  a 
subject  as  tliis.  Two  hundred  and  more  sermons  are  not  a  favor- 
able field  in  wliich  to  turn  up  many  nuggets  of  wit.  The  sermon 
of  Milton  Palmer  Braman  for  1845  is  a  grateful  oasis  in  a  vast 
desert  of  words.  Although  it  contains  eighty-five  pages,  it  has 
within  them  a  number  of  pleasantries,  and  is  extremely  optimistic. 
Braman  speaks  tartly  of  South  Carolina  executing  "  her  alarming 
threat  of  withdrawing  her  protection  from  the  general  government, 
and  shutting  the  United  States  out  of  the  Union."  ^  Of  the  then 
flourishing  transcendental  movement,  he  says,  rather  neatly,  "Cliris- 
tianity  needs  Cluistianizing,  and  its  spirit  of  love  to  be  sublimated 
into  the  transcendental,  super-exquisite,  double-refined  philanthropy 
of  the  apostles  of  a  civilized  Gospel."  ^  He  comments  at  some 
length  on  Know-Notliingism,  which  had  not  then  come  to  be  known 
by  that  name,  and  is  opposed  to  immigration  of  the  ignorant. 

As  late  as  1848,  it  is  curious  that  Alexander  H.  Vinton  should 
insist  on  the  divine  origin  of  government,  sometliing  which  Election 
preachers,  almost  without  exception,  have  been  strenuous  to  deny, 
following,  as  I  have  said  elsewhere,  the  theory  of  Locke. 

The  Rev.  John  Pierce,  to  whom  lovers  of  antiquity,  and  of  Elec- 
tion Sermons  in  particular,  owe  gratitude,  preached  in  1849.  He 
was,  I  believe,  the  longest  graduated,  at  the  time  of  the  delivery  of 
his  sermon,  of  any  in  the  long  list  of  preachers,  having  then  been 
an  alumnus  of  Harvard  College  for  fifty-six  years.  He  deals  with 
the  question  of  temperance,  on  which  these  sermons  had  long  been 
silent ;  and  he  also  speaks  of  the  charitable  endeavors  of  Miss  Doro- 
thea L.  Dix.  At  the  end  of  his  address  is  a  list  of  Election  Ser- 
mons, with  notes  which  I  have  had  occasion  to  use.  Dr.  Pierce 
had  collected  for  himself  thirteen  sermons  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, all  but  four  of  the  eighteenth,  and  of  the  nineteenth  all  down 
to  1849.  This,  the  finest  collection  of  the  kind  at  that  time,  was 
bound  by  decades,  when  possible,  and  after  the  owner's  death  was 
sent  to  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society's  Library. 

It  cannot  escape  notice  that  the  sermon  of  the  great  logician  of 
Andover,  Edwards  A.  Park,  for  1851,  on  the  "  Indebtedness  of  the 
State  to  the  Clergy,"  ^  evaded  the  most  absorbing  moral  question 

1  Braman's  Election  Sermon  for  1845,  p.  34.  ^  jud  p.  40. 

*  Reprinted  in  Dr.  Park's  "  Discoiu-ses  on  some  Theological  Doctrines  as 
related  to  the  Religious  Character."  (1885.) 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  61 

then  before  mankind.  Coming  just  after  the  advocacy  of  a  theo- 
cratic democracy  in  the  discourses  of  Alexander  H.  Vinton  in  1848, 
and  of  Edward  Hitchcock  in  1850,  the  contrast  is  sharp  wliich  is  pre- 
sented by  RoUin  H.  Neale's  statement  in  1852  that  government, 
"  in  its  corporate  capacity,  has  no  more  to  do  with  religion  than  the 
directors  of  a  bank  or  the  superintendents  of  a  railway."  ^  This 
preacher  was  not  a  sym23athizer  with  Know-Nothingism.  He 
has  besides  a  long  note  on  the  now  almost  forgotten  mission  of 
Kossuth. 

Not  much  longer  could  the  discussion  of  what  was  uppermost 
in  the  popular  mind  be  scorned  or  avoided.  Even  the  Election 
preacher  must  utter  sometliing  besides  graceful  periods,  and  at  last 
even  the  Vicar  of  Bray  must  become  a  partisan.  In  the  midst  of 
the  clamor  for  human  rights  could  be  heard  at  times  the  small 
voice  of  the  conservative  pulpit.  He  who  spoke  in  1855  carefully 
avoids  all  discussion  of  anything  of  the  slightest  contemporary 
interest  or  importance,  but  has  his  fling  at  "  a  self-righteous,  self- 
seeking  philanthrophy,"  ^  by  which  he  would  seem  to  mean  the 
anti-slavery  agitation. 

It  is  impossible  now  to  discover  how  many  copies  of  the  earlier 
sermons  were  printed  in  an  edition ;  but  at  about  this  time,  in 
the  order  to  print,  the  number  is  specified.  A  few  of  the  ser- 
mons were  printed  as  follows :  in  1855,  3,000  copies ;  in  1856, 
4,000 ;  in  1857,  3,000 ;  in  1858,  4,000 ;  in  1859,  2,000 ;  in  1860, 
3,000;  in  1861  and  1863,  8,000;  in  1864,  5,000;  in  18T2,  4,000; 
in  1873,  3,000 ;  in  1874,  3,000 ;  and  in  1876,  1,000  only. 

Although  the  authors  of  many  of  these  sermons  failed  to  per- 
ceive the  inevitable  drift  of  public  affairs,  yet  it  is  creditable  to 
them  that  so  few  had  "  notions  "  to  advance.  I  have  met,  in  the 
course  of  my  ramblings  tln-ough  these  pages,  no  proposition  more 
singular  than  that  advanced  by  Raymond  H.  Seeley,  in  1856,  to 
obviate  the  evils  of  spoils-hunting.  He  would  have  "put  up,  an- 
nually, certain  sums  of  money  and  badges  of  distinctions  —  stars, 
garters,  and  crosses  of  the  legion  of  honor  —  to  be  won  by  the 
ballot-box,  and  distributed  among  those  parties  who  should  secure 
the  largest  number  of  votes."  ^ 

^  Neale's  Election  Sermon  for  1852,  p.  27.,  note. 

2  Samuel  Kirkland  Lothrop's  Election  Sermon  for  1855,  p.  14. 

8  Seeley's  Election  Sermon  for  1856,  p.  23. 


52  THE   JMASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

Governor  Henry  J.  Gardner  was  the  successful  candidate  of  the 
Know-Nothing  party  from  1855  to  1858.  In  liis  audience  were 
spoken  many  tilings  supposed  to  be  grateful  to  the  sentiments  of 
the  select  political  organization  which  elected  him.  No  other  Elec- 
tion Sermon  that  I  can  recall  is  so  violent  in  its  religious  and  race 
prejudice  as  John  Pike's  long  diatribe  in  1857  against  Roman 
Catholicism.  We  must  forgive  tliis  preacher  his  rashness,  for  he 
tells  the  story  (perhaps  unconscious  of  its  merits)  of  the  toasting 
of  Archbishop  Hughes  at  Blackwell's  Island,  New  York,  as  "  Our 
illustrious  guest,  the  representative  of  the  large  majority  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Island !  "  ^ 

Taken  as  a  whole,  how  few  the  useful  and  practical  suggestions 
for  every-day  life  in  this  immense  array  of  chscourses  !  But  as  the 
list  grows  longer  there  is  noticeably  less  of  the  merely  doctrinal 
and  conventional,  and  more,  very  much  more,  of  effective  Clu'is- 
tianity  and  humanity.  Edward  Everett  Hale's  adcb'ess  in  1859  was 
eminently  useful.  Though  very  close  to  the  eve  of  war,  it  does 
not  refer  to  national  affairs,  but  is  directed  against  red  tape,  dead 
letter,  and  other  evils  of  bureaucracy,  particularly  as  they  relate  to 
public  charities.  He  makes  the  interesting  statement  that  tlu*ee 
times  as  many  men  were  imjorisoned  in  1857  as  in  1844.^ 

"  It  would  be  folly,"  said  Austin  Phelps  in  1861,  "  to  predict  the 
intelligence  of  to-morrow's  telegraph ;  "  ^  and  in  his  tribute  to  Free- 
dom he  refers  significantly  to  the  "  hush  which  precedes  the  earth- 
quake." *  The  earth  had  quaked  effectually  before  the  next  Elec- 
tion Day  came,  on  which  occasion  William  R.  Alger  spoke.  The 
generation  wliich  was  young  when  the  Civil  War  began  cannot 
easily  comprehend  the  spirit  of  tliis  preacher's  address,  which  seems 
to  refer  to  some  peculiar  phase  of  the  public  mind.  To  liim  the 
eager  patriotism  of  the  time  appeared  "  more  like  the  pride  of  the 
country  leaping  up  to  avenge  an  insult."  ^  James  Walker  in  his 
sermon  for  1863,  yearns  for  another  Wasliington,  while  by  con- 
trast, the  next  year,  William  A.  Stearns  rejoices  that  "there  is 
a  power  in  the  land  hardly  second  to  that  of  an  immense  army,"  ^ 

*  Pike's  Election  Sermon  for  1857,  p.  31. 

2  Hale's  Election  Sermon  for  1850,  p.  23. 

8  Phelps's  Election  Sermon  for  18G1,  p.  56.  *  Ibid.  p.  48. 

5  Alger's  Election  Sermon  for  1862,  p.  40. 

^  Stearns's  Election  Sermon  for  1864,  p.  38. 


THE   JVIASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  53 

meaning  by  tliis  the  personal  character  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
"  Thank  God,"  he  begins,  "  we  have  still  a  country !  "  During 
the  delivery  of  his  sermon,  Dr.  Stearns  had  the  misfortune  to  drop 
his  manuscript.  It  is  remembered  of  the  incident  that  he  asked 
Dr.  Blagden  to  pray  during  the  picking  up  of  the  widely  scattered 
pages. 

"  Oh !  that  New  England  might  be,  late  and  forever,  what  she 
was  at  first  —  Puritan !  "  ^  —  is  the  solemn  wish  of  Andrew  L.  Stone 
in  1865.  His  words  are  full  of  kindness  for  the  desolate  South, 
and  for  the  future  of  the  African  race ;  but  he  inveighs  against 
"that  foul  monster,  fouler  and  more  misshapen  than  Satan  saw 
sitting  portress  at  the  gate  of  hell  —  Party  Spirit."  ^  Mr. 
Grinnell,  speaking  in  1871,  takes  a  different  view  when  he  says : 
"  Rather  than  an  indifferentist,  give  me  a  violent  partisan ;  rather 
than  a  conservative  bigot,  give  me  a  radical  fanatic."  ^ 

For  eloquence  pure  and  simple,  Alonzo  H.  Quint's  patriotic  dis- 
course in  1866  has  struck  me  as  most  noteworthy.  It  is  one  long, 
breathless  sentence  on  the  power  of  a  democracy  to  carry  on  a  war 
in  a  loyal  spirit.    In  tliis  pamphlet  was  a  list  of  Election  preachers. 

In  1868,  Dr.  James  Freeman  Clarke  comes  back  to  the  Gospel 
of  Practical  Reform,  wliich  the  necessities  of  war  had  stopped  since 
Mr.  Hale  had  proclaimed  it  in  1859.  He  dwells  on  prison  reform, 
makes  the  first  important  defence  in  these  sermons  of  women's 
rights,  and  tlu-ows  his  influence  against  corporal  punishment  in 
schools.  How  a  Stoughton  or  a  Torrey  would  have  shuddered  at 
so  practical  and  direct  a  view  of  tilings.  No  Hebrew,  no  Greek, 
not  even  a  bit  of  Latin,  to  garnish  the  straightforward  and  simple 
English !  Dr.  Clarke  found  the  next  year  a  direct  opponent  of  his 
views  in  Benjamin  F.  Clark,  who  held  that  the  object  of  law  is 
to  protect,  not  to  reform.  At  the  close  of  the  sermon  a  hymn  seems 
to  have  been  sung,  which,  so  far  as  I  have  noticed,  is  the  only 
hymn  printed  in  connection  with  an  Election  Sermon. 

In  Grinnell's  sermon  on  Fanaticism  in  1871,  Mr.  Henry  H.  Edes 
published  liis  full  and  important  list  of  Election  preachers,  upon 
which  I  have  much  relied. 

Owing  to  the  declination  by  William  H.  H.  Murray  of  an  invita- 
tion to  preach  in  1872,  Andi-ew  P.  Peabody  accepted  the  honor,  and 

'  Stone's  Election  Sermon  for  1865,  p.  16.  2  /j,-^/  p.  30, 

2  (irinnell's  Election  Sermon  for  1S71,  p.  26. 


54  THE  IMASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SEKMONS. 

discoursed  on  "  The  Rights  and  Dangers  of  Property."  It  will  be 
remembered  that  tliis  was  a  time  of  great  dissatisfaction  in  national 
affairs.  The  preacher  seems  to  have  fallen  into  the  critical  vein, 
and  takes  a  censorious  view,  even  going  so  far  as  to  say  that  "  We 
are  probably  the  most  heavily  taxed  people  upon  the  face  of  the 
earth."  ^    Dr.  Peabody's  sermon  was  widely  read. 

In  1875,  Edwin  C.  Bolles  of  Salem  preached,  but  liis  sermon  was 
not  printed.  There  is  tolerable  certainty  that  several  sermons  which 
were  delivered  were  never  printed,  particularly  those  for  1713  and 
1717 ;  but  it  is  positive  that  the  sermon  for  1875  was  never  given 
to  the  press,  although  its  publication  was  requested.  It  is  un- 
fortunate that  to  Mr.  Bolles  should  attach  the  distinction  of  being 
the  fost  preacher  to  break  a  clean  record  of  sermons  printed  con- 
tinuously since  1765.  He  seems,  however,  to  have  had  a  reason- 
able excuse,  and  I  shall  not  hesitate  to  give  it.  It  appears  that  the 
business  of  assembling  the  legislators  and  of  choosing  officers  had 
for  some  years  past  taken  so  much  of  the  attention  of  the  General 
Court,  that  by  the  time  it  was  ready  to  hear  the  Sermon  the  hour 
was  quite  late,  and  many  of  the  members  failed  to  attend  the  cere- 
mony. The  preacher  was  not  infrequently  detained  some  time 
before  all  was  in  readiness.  This  was  especially  the  case  in  1875. 
The  Court  was  late,  the  audience  was  so  small  as  to  fill  about  one 
quarter  of  the  seats,  the  eloquent  preacher  was  kept  waiting.  He 
finally  delivered  an  able  discourse,  and  was,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
asked  to  prepare  a  copy  for  the  press  ;  but  the  copy  was  never  pre- 
sented, and  so  the  long  chain  was  at  last  broken. 

As  a  result  of  this  culmination  of  recent  delays  and  inconven- 
iences attending  the  ceremony,  a  resolve  was  approved  on  12  May, 
1875,  "  That  the  annual  election  sermon  shall  hereafter  be  preached 
in  some  house  of  religious  worsliip  in  the  city  of  Boston,  to  be  des- 
ignated eacli  year  by  the  Governor,  under  whose  general  cUrection 
proper  arrangements  for  the  service  shall  be  made."  ^ 

The  last  few  sermons  have  a  peculiar,  even  melancholy,  interest. 
James  L.  Hill's  for  1878  is  unlike  the  rest  in  being  full  of  foot- 
notes; Alexander  McKenzie's  for  1879  was  full  of  poetical  quota- 
tions; wliile  in  1880  Daniel  W.  Wakbon's  tells  an  "  affecting  anec- 

1  Peabody's  Election  Sermon  for  1872,  p.  19. 

2  Resolves  of  1875,  chap.  62. 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  55 

dote,"  —  the  first  of  the  homiletic  sort  which  I  recall.^  Tlie  most 
elegantly  and  attractively  printed  sermon  was  Daniel  L.  Furber's 
in  1881.  It  had  the  honor  of  two  editions,  and  contains  some  in- 
teresting historical  data  concerning  its  predecessors. 

There  may  be  some  who  are  of  the  opinion  that  this  custom  fell 
into  disfavor  tlu-ough  lack  of  ability  or  interest  on  the  part  of  the 
ministry  of  later  years.  Let  such  read  the  sermon  for  1882,  by 
Joseph  F.  Lovering  of  Worcester,  "  The  Sliields  of  the  Earth  be- 
long to  the  Lord."  The  request  to  print  calls  it  an  "  instructive, 
patriotic,  and  valuable  discourse,"  and  so  it  is ;  not  one  of  tliis  long 
array  is  more  so.  Compare  its  humanity  and  enthusiasm  with  the 
dry,  dull  pedantry  of  so  much  of  the  remote  past  of  this  sort  of  liter- 
rature.  In  1883,  Robert  R.  Meredith  dwelt  on  the  observance  of 
Sunday,  marriage  laws,  intemperance,  and  other  practical  questions. 

For  a  few  of  the  later  years  the  sermons  were  delivered  in  King's 
Chapel.  It  was  destined  that  the  last  ever  spoken  should  depart 
from  this  precedent,  since  the  ceremonies  for  1881  took  place  in 
the  Columbus  Avenue  Universalist  Church.  The  pastor,  the  Rev. 
Alonzo  A.  Miner,  chose  for  his  subject,  "The  Rectitude  of  Gov- 
ernment the  Source  of  its  Power."  After  a  vigorous  attack  upon 
social  and  political  evils,  among  which  he  included  some  alleged 
evils  which  were  dwelt  upon  in  a  way  wliich  was  perhaps  in- 
tended to  be  offensive  to  many  of  his  hearers,  he  wound  up  with 
a  salutation  to  the  out-going  governor.  General  Benjamin  F. 
Butler,  who  had  been  the  chief  magistrate  during  1883,  and  had 
just  been  defeated  for  re-election.  "  Your  great  success  tlu^ough 
a  long  professional  career,  acliieved  by  extraordinary  ability  and 
rare  personal  energy,  command  in  this  hour  of  retirement  from  the 
gubernatorial  office  general  recognition."  ^  The  hot  blood  of  party 
strife  had  not  sufficiently  cooled  from  a  campaign  of  almost  un- 
paralleled intensity  to  tolerate  this,  and  shortly  afterwards  the 
Election  Sermon  was  abolished.  The  motion  to  abolish  the  custom 
was  made  by  the  Hon.  John  F.  Andrew,  son  of  Governor  Jolui  A. 
Andrew.  The  direct  causes  were  very  likely  political  opposition, 
and  a  dislike  to  hear  moral  questions  discussed  politically  by  min- 
isters ;  but  deeper  than  the  spleen  of  legislators  was  the  fact  that 

1  Waldron's  Election  Sermon  for  1880,  p.  20. 
^  Miner's  Election  Sermon  for  1881^,  p.  -iG. 


56  THE   IVIASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

the  religious  character  of  the  people   of  tliis   Commonwealth  no 
longer  appeared  to  demand  a  continuance  of  the  old  custom. 

It  is  a  curious  coincidence,  though  two  hundi'ed  and  fifty  years 
separated  the  times  of  their  delivery,  that  the  fii-st  and  the  last 
Massachusetts  Election  Sermons  both  ran  counter  to  public  senti- 
ment. Cotton's  interference  in  politics  in  1634  met  with  a  signifi- 
cant rebuke  from  liis  listeners  ;  and  in  1884  Dr.  Miner  hastened  an 
end  which,  regret  it  as  we  may,  we  can  hardly  call  untimely. 

In  reading  many  pages  of  so  much  that  is  representative  of  New 
England  thought,  and  of  that  thought  often  at  its  best,  two  objects 
have  been  uppermost,  —  one,  to  discover  the  opinions  of  our  min- 
istry during  tliis  stretch  of  years  concerning  the  sin  of  slavery ;  the 
other,  to  get  facts  concerning  public  morals,  especially  in  relation 
to  intemperance. 

To  acquit  the  clergy  of  New  England  of  indifference  in  their 
attitude  toward  the  "  sum  of  all  villanies "  would  be  most  agree- 
able if  it  were  possible.  The  evidence  does  not  stand  in  our  favor ; 
and  a  candid  search  only  enables  one  to  add  more  black  marks  to 
the  unfavorable  record  compiled  by  the  late  Dr.  George  H.  Moore. 

The  lack  of  moral  enthusiasm  on  this  topic  appears  in  a  worse 
light  because,  so  far  as  we  can  learn,  great  freedom  of  speech  was 
tolerated  on  this  occasion,  even  just  before  the  Revolution,  when 
the  sermons,  being  circulated  as  political  and  social  tracts,  were  ex- 
pressly adapted  as  means  to  promote  reform.  It  was  not  as  if  the 
ministers  had  to  invent  the  moral  conception  that  slave-trading  or 
slave-holding  was  iniquitous ;  the  Body  of  Liberties  early  had  in 
some  way  recognized  this  fact.^  Good  men,  too,  made  their  pro- 
tests. John  Eliot,  in  1675,  remonstrated  against  selling  Indians 
into  slavery.  Cotton  Mather's  sentiments  in  this  matter  were 
humane.  In  1700  Samuel  Sewall  published  his  "The  Selling  of 
Joseph,"  —  "the  first  public  plea  for  the  emancipation  of  the 
negro ; "  ^    and  later  Woolman's  voice,  which  was  raised  against 

1  See  Article  91,  "Body  of  Liberties,"  in  3  Massachusetts  Historical  Col- 
lections, vii.  231.  I  do  not  forget  that  Dr.  Moore,  speaking  of  a  case  of  slave- 
trading  on  a  Boston  vessel  in  1645,  says:  "In  all  the  proceedings  of  the 
Genei-al  Court  on  this  occasion,  there  is  not  a  trace  of  anti-slavery  opinion  or 
sentiment."  —  Notes  on  the  Hi»torij  of  Slaver)/  in  Massachusetts,  p.  30. 

2  See  Mr.  Goorlell's  communication  on  fJohu  Salhn  and  his  slave  Adam  at 
the  March,  1893,  Meeting  of  this  Society,  ante,  p.  85  et  seq. 


THE   MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  57 

the  enormity,  was  heard  in  New  England.  It  may  easily  liave 
happened  that  some  earlier  mention  in  this  series  of  sermons  has 
escaped  my  notice ;  but  I  do  not  recall  anything  of  importance 
antedating  Cooke's  discourse  for  1770,  in  A^hich  he  eloquently 
says :  "  I  trust,  on  this  occasion,  I  may,  without  offence,  plead  the 
cause  of  our  African  slaves ;  and  humbly  propose  the  pui'suit  of 
some  effectual  measure,  at  least,  to  prevent  the  further  importation 
of  them."  1  The  pulpit  of  Election  Day  had  then  been  silent  on 
this  theme  almost  one  hundi-ed  and  forty  years. 

It  is  well  understood  that,  in  the  midst  of  the  Revolution,  Wil- 
liam Gordon  was  dismissed  from  the  chaplaincy  of  the  General  Court 
because  of  his  views  on  slavery .^  Free  speech  proved  as  disastrous 
to  the  preacher  in  1778  as  it  did  in  1634  and  1884.  Yet  in  1779  not 
only  anti-slavery  but  emancipation  was  advocated  by  Samuel  Still- 
man  :  "  May  the  year  of  jubilee  soon  arrive,  when  Africa  shall  cast 
the  look  of  gratitude  to  these  hapjDy  regions,  for  tlie  total  eman- 
cipation of  HER  sons  ! "  ^  Moses  Hemmenway,  in  1784,  boldly 
declares  that  "That  inhuman  monster  slaveey,  wliich  has  too 
long  been  tolerated,  is  at  length  proscribed.  .  .  .  And  it  is  de- 
voutly wished  that  the  turf  may  lie  firm  upon  its  grave."  *  After 
this  is  a  moral  interregnum  until  1805,  when  John  AUyn  takes  up 
the  subject,  to  drop  it  speedily  "lest  sometliing  unwelcome  should 
obtrude  itself  in  regard  to  the  social  condition  of  some  of  our  sister 
States."^  Tlu-ee  decades  more  of  Election  Sermons  and  Daniel 
Dana  in  1837  speaks  out  a  little  more  boldly.  He  would  not  disturb 
the  political  side  of  the  problem,  but  would  attack  its  weak  position 
on  the  moral  side.  Dana  also  devotes  a  few  words  to  the  Indian 
policy.  Andrew  Bigelow  in  1836,  and  David  Damon  in  1841,  in 
extremely  conservative  sermons,  were  unfriendly  to  the  anti-slaver}^ 
sjiirit.  That,  however,  was  already  a  spirit  which  could  not  be  laid 
by  hostile  words.  There  is  no  uncertainty  in  the  boldness  of 
George  Putnam's  anti-slavery  sentiments  in  1846,  nor  does  he  omit 
to  express  himself  on  the  coming  Mexican  Avar.     The  clergy  were 

'■  Cooke's  Election  Sermon  for  1770,  p.  41. 

2  George  II.  Moore's  Notes  on  the  History  of  Slavery  in  ]\Iassachusetts, 
p.  194. 

^  Stillman's  Election  Sermon  for  1779,  p.  35. 

*  Hemmen way's  Election  Sermon  for  178-1,  p.  37. 

^  Allyn's  Election  Sermon  for  1805,  p.  25. 


58  THE  IVIASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

at  last  gaming  moral  courage.  The  habitual  caution  of  age  was 
moved  to  express  itself  when  the  venerable  Dr.  Pierce  in  1849 
assured  liis  hearers  that  "  we  shall  try  by  all  feasible  means  to  be 
rid  of  slavery."  ^ 

To  those  who  believed  in  what  was  then  called  the  Higher  Law, 
Dr.  Neale's  sermon  for  1852  was  a  wet-blanket ;  but  the  next  year 
Samuel  Wolcott,  in  the  longest  discussion  yet  devoted  to  this  sub- 
ject, made  amends  for  previous  lukewarmness.  "Disobedience  is 
a  solemn  duty,"  he  affirms,  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  In  1860, 
at  the  eleventh  hour,  Thomas  D.  Anderson  shows  that  lack  of 
sympathy  with  the  popular  sentiment  common  to  so  many  of  the 
clergy,  when  he  says,  "  The  exchange  of  slavery  for  bloodshed,  of  civ- 
ilized homes  for  servile  elevation,  the  gain  of  the  form  of  equality,  at 
the  dictation  of  despotic  force,  makes  no  progress."  ^  With  a  very 
few  exceptions,  therefore,  I  am  convinced  that  the  preachers  of  the 
Massachusetts  Election  Sermons  were  not  outspoken  as  to  slavery. 
It  will  have  to  be  admitted  that  there  were  two  sides  to  the  slavery 
question,  else  it  would  not  have  been  a  question.  It  must  also  be 
conceded  that  the  General  Court  was  slow  in  inviting  preachers  of 
a  radical  turn  of  mind  to  address  it,  and  hence  it  was  that  men  like 
Lyman  Beecher,  Theodore  Parker,  and  James  Freeman  Clarke,  were 
ignored  in  the  critical  days  before  the  Civil  War. 

But  there  were  other  evils  nearer  home  which  no  ministry  of  any 
age  may  treat  lightly.  Chief  among  these  evils  was  intemperance. 
The  fact  of  slavery  was  patent  to  everybody,  but  I  cannot  find  that 
the  fact  of  drunkenness  was  equally  plain  to  the  ethical  perception 
of  our  preachers. 

The  fight  against  New  England's  greatest  social  enemy  began 
early;  and  yet  ah  initio  there  were  those  who  could  see  notliing 
but  an  almost  Utopian  condition  of  things.  The  stern  witch 
judge,  in  1668,  bitterly  cries  out  against  "  Revellings  and  Drunk- 
enness ; "  on  the  other  hand,  however,  Hutchinson  quotes  a  letter 
written  in  1660  in  which  the  writer  states  that  he  "  had  lived  sev- 
eral years  in  the  country  and  never  saw  a  person  drunk  nor  never 
heard  a  profane  oath."  ^      Hutchinson   states   elsewhere   that   he 

1  Pierce's  Election  Sermon  for  1849,  p.  48. 

2  Anderson's  Election  Sermon  for  ISGO,  p.  26. 

8  History  of  Massachusetts,  i.  443.  I  think  that  Hutchinson  is  here  trying 
to  quote  Giles  Firniin,  whose  very  words  are  given  later. 


THE   ]VIASSACHtJSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  59 

"  never  heard  of  a  separation,  under  the  first  charter,  a  mensa  d 
ihoroT  ^  Stoughton  was  not  the  only  pessimist  in  this  respect. 
Willard,  in  1682,  speaks  of  "beastly  cbunkenness ; "  and  in  1689, 
Cotton  Mather,  who  had  a  modern  zeal  for  temperance  reform, 
mildly  asks,  "  Whether  the  Multitude  or  Quality  of  Drinking-Rouses^ 
in  the  midst  of  us,  had  not  once  been  a  Stumbling-block  of  our  Ini- 
quity.'''' 2  The  next  year  he  is  covertly  censuring  men  of  the 
Andros  stamp  who,  he  thought,  tended  to  spoil  the  simple  morals 
of  New  Englanders,  "and  learn  them  to  Drink  and  Drab,  and 
Game,  and  profane  the  Sabbath,  and  Sin  against  the  Hope  of  their 
Fathers:'  ^ 

Joseph  Belcher,  in  1701,  speaks  of  the  sins  of  sensuality,  idleness, 
and  of  cbunkenness,  especially  among  the  "miserable  Indians;" 
Estabrook,  in  1705,  continues  in  the  same  strain.  In  1708,  John 
Norton  (of  Hingham)  arraigns  a  black  host,  —  "  Atheism,  pro- 
phaneness,  sensuality,  pride,  oppression,  lukewarmness,"  etc. ;  *  but 
cli'unkenness  is  not  among  them.  "  Is  not  our  Land  deluged  with 
Intemperance  and  Drunkness  ?  "  ^  asks  Ebenezer  Pemberton  in  1710 ; 
and  later  on  he  speaks  of  "  Frauds  and  Forgeries  committed  upon 
our  Bills  of  Publick  Credit^  ^  The  year  before,  Grindall  Rawson  in- 
quires :  "  Doth  not  the  Shameful  and  worse  than  Bruitish  Sin  of 
Drunkenness,  like  an  irresistible  Inundation,  threaten  to  carry  all 
before  it  ?  "  "  and,  further,  "  Are  not  haiiious,  and  fearful  breaches 
of  the  Seventh  Commandment  .  .  .  become  exceeding  frequent  ?  "  ^ 
Peter  Thacher  is  more  specific  in  his  charges :  "  What  excessive 
Tipling  and  Drinking,  which  like  a  Flood  even  drowns  much  of 
Clu'istianity  in  several  places  ?  Especially  on  Training-day-even- 
ings, which  tilings  ought  not  to  be."  ^  A  few  years  later,  William 
Williams  of  Hatfield  discourses  against  disrespect  to  rulers,  laxity 
as  to  church-going,  and  drunkenness.  Of  the  last  he  says :  "  It  is 
almost  incredible  what  is  said  of  the  Quantities  of  Rhum  bro't  into 
the  Country.  ...  In  many  places  the  Minister  has  but  few  Visitors 
to  enquire  the  way  of  Life :   but  the  Inn-keeper  is  tlu-ong'd  with 

^  Hutchinson's  History  of  Massachusetts,  i.  445. 
2  Mather's  Election  Sermon  for  1689,  p.  26. 

8  Mather's  Election   Sermon  for  1690,  p.  31. 
*  Norton's  Election  Sermon  for  1708,  p.  15. 

5  Pemberton's  Election  Sermon  for  1710,  p.  99.  «  /j;^.  p.  joi. 

■^  Rawson's  Election  Sermon  for  1709,  p.  35.  ^  Ibid.  p.  35. 

9  Thacher's  Election  Sermon  for  1711,  p.  29. 


60  THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SEEMONS. 

company.  .  .  .  When  they  come  from  Work  they  go  to  the  Tavern  ; 
when  dismissed  from  Trainings  they  go  to  the  Tavern^  ^ 

It  has  seemed  to  me  a  reasonable  theory  that,  during  the  political 
quiet  in  New  England  of  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
an  opportunity  may  have  been  afforded  to  the  ministry  for  inquir- 
ing more  fully  into  the  moral  condition  of  the  country.  There 
were  no  more  witches  to  try,  and  the  Indians  were  under  control ; 
there  was  really  nothing  to  ponder  but  the  debased  currency,  the 
duty  to  rulers,  and  man's  unceasing  weakness  and  folly.  Some 
ministers  endeavored  seriously  to  work  a  reform,  and  did  not  con- 
tent themselves  with  conventional  regrets  over  wickedness.  "  Let 
it  be  seriously  considered,"  said  Joseph  Baxter,  in  1727,  "whether 
the  Multiplying  of  Houses  that  are  Licensed  to  Sell  Strong  Drink 
be  not  the  occasion  of  a  great  deal  of  Sin.  And  is  there  no  remedy- 
ing of  that?  Is  there  nothing  more  to  be  done  to  keep  Town- 
Dwellers  from  Sotting  away  their  Time  at  Taverns  ?  And  cannot 
there  be  something  done  that  will  be  more  effectual  to  prevent  the 
making  of  Indians  Drunk  ?  "  ^ 

Thomas  Prince,  in  his  sermon  for  1730,  makes  a  statement  which 
must  have  astonished  even  the  generally  blameless  New  Englanders 
of  those  days,  when  he  said,  "  I  never  heard  a  Profane  Oath  or 
Curse,  till  I  was  Fifteen  Years  of  Age,  when  I  came  down  and 
heard  them  first  from  a  Profane  Youth  of  our  Metropolis."  ^  Still 
more  astounding  is  the  assertion  that  "  Profane  Swearers  and 
Drunkards  are  not  known  in  the  Land."  *  If  this  refers,  as  must 
be  its  intention,  to  the  pristine  days  of  the  Colony,  Wintlu-op's 
Journal  conclusively  disproves  the  existence  of  such  felicitous 
conditions. 

Giles  Firmin  is  commonly  supposed  to  have  declared  in  a  sermon  ^ 
before  the  Houses  of  Lords  and  Commons,  with  the  Assembly  of 
Divines,  at  Westminster,  that  "  he  never  saw  a  Beggar,  nor  a  Man 
overcome  with  strong  Drink,  nor  did  he  ever  hear  a  profane  Oath 
among  them."    Israel  Loring,  who  quotes  Giles  Firmin,  as  above,  in 

^  Williams's  Election  Sermon  for  1719,  p.  25. 

2  Baxter's  Election  Sermon  for  1727,  p.  32. 

3  Prince's  Election  Sermon  for  1730,  p.  35. 

4  Ihid.  p.  29. 

^  John  Ward  Dean,  in  his  Brief  Memoir  of  Firmin  (p.  11)  quotes  this 
a  little  differently,  and  seems  inclined  to  doubt  if  the  utterance  was  that  of 
Firmin. 


THE   MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS.  61 

his  Sermon  for  1737,^  proposed  that  "  No  Person  be  allowed  to  sell 
strong  Drink,  but  what  are  of  approved  Sobriety  and  good  Conver- 
sation, Men  of  Honesty,  and  good  Order."  ^  A  strong  voice  against 
this  "  Sin,  wliich  threatens  to  Ruin  this  Land,"  ^  was  raised  by 
Daniel  Lewis  in  1748.  From  that  time  on,  for  a  hundred  years, 
the  Election  pulpit  was  virtually  silent  on  tliis  topic.  It  was  not, 
I  tliink,  until  Dr.  Pierce's  sermon  in  1849  that  the  subject  was 
again  taken  up  in  earnest. 

What  is  now  understood  as  Prohibition  was  favored  in  1854  by 
Miner  Raymond,  and  for  the  first  time  in  these  sermons.  After 
him  there  was  a  gap,  until  Heiuy  W.  Warren,  in  1867,  once  more 
revived  the  theme,  which  at  last,  however  timidly  it  has  usually 
been  handled,  was  thoroughly  and  finally  discussed  by  Dr.  Miner. 

Not  only  were  the  early  preachers  alive  to  moral  delinquencies, 
but  they  were  watchful  over  the  wants  of  education.  The  first 
sermons  contain  many  urgent  demands  for  enforcement  of  laws 
regarding  the  "  inferior  schools."  Prince,  in  1730,  speaking  of 
advantages  in  his  day,  mentions  "  Grammar  Schools  in  every  Town 
of  an  hundred  Families,  free  for  the  Poorest  without  Expence."  * 

The  custom  of  preaching  the  Election  Sermon  was  early  felt  by 
the  preachers  themselves  to  be  important  and  worthy  of  mainten- 
ance. But  Bishop  (then  the  Reverend  Mr.)  Huntington,  in  1858, 
seems  to  have  anticipated  its  doom :  ''  If  it  ever  sinlcs  into  a  mere 
routine,  —  the  ghastly  effigy  of  a  departed  sincerity,  —  it  will  be 
because  some  generation  has  not  honesty  and  courage  to  drop  the 
form  with  the  life."  ^  The  true  object  of  preserving  the  custom 
would  seem  to  have  been  best  expressed  by  the  preacher  for  1874, 
when  he  calls  the  Election  ceremony  "  a  service  whose  value  is  not 
so  much  in  the  words  that  may  be  spoken,  as  in  the  reverent  act 
that  is  publicly  done."  «  But  pious  wish  of  preacher,  and  sentiment 
for  a  venerable  and  peculiar  New-England  institution  cherished  in 
the  hearts  of  a  few  lovers  of  the  past,  could  not  save  the  Election 
Sermon.     It  seems  to  have  been  abolished  in  a  Legislative  huff, 

1  Loring's  Election  Sermon  for  1737,  p.  27.  2  /^^^^  p_  53^^ 

*  Lewis's  Election  Sermon  for  1748,  p.  17. 

*  Prince's  Election  Sermon  for  1730,  p.  34, 

5  Huntington's  Election  Sermon  for  18,58,  p.  8, 

*  Richard  Gleason  Greene's  Election  Sermon  for  1874.  p.  24. 


62  THE   MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

but  in  reality  the  legislators  were  tired  of  it,  and  the  people  were 
forgetting  that  there  was  such  a  thing. 

Elections  were  generally  held  in  May,i  the  last  Wednesday  in 
Easter  term,  until  1832,  when  the  time  was  changed  to  the  first 
Wednesday  in  January.  The  severities  of  a  New-England  winter, 
and  the  still  greater  severities  of  a  New-England  spring,  would  not 
at  first  have  allowed  an  earlier  gathering  of  the  representative  free- 
men. As  it  was,  the  arrangements  for  their  reception  were  meagre, 
and  their  place  of  gathering  rude.  We  do  not  learn  that  any 
meeting-house  was  erected  until  1632,  in  which  year  there  was 
built  a  one-story  thatched-roof  structure  in  what  is  now  State 
Street,  on  the  site  of  Brazer's  Building.^  Afterwards  the  ser- 
vices were  held  in  the  new  meeting-house,  which  was  built  in 
1640,  on  the  site  of  the  Rogers  Building  on  Wasliington  Street 
nearly  opposite  the  head  of  State  Street.  Lechford  says,  "the 
generall  and  great  quarter  Courts  are  kept"  here.'"^  Boston  had 
then  a  fair-sized  population,  although  the  polls  were  meagre  in 
number.  Even  as  late  as  1665  only  ninety  votes  were  tlirown  to 
elect  deputies.  The  next  place  where  the  Sermon  was  preached 
was  the  Town  House,  which  was  given  by  Captain  Keayne.  This 
structure  was  finished  about  the  year  1638.  In  1711  it  was  burnt.* 
In  1713  the  Council  met  in  the  new  Town  House,  now  the  Old 
State  House.  During  most  of  the  time,  however,  the  sermons  were 
delivered  in  the  Old  South  Church.  After  its  disuse  as  a  meeting- 
house, several  were  preached  in  King's  Chapel,  Hollis  Street  Church, 
and  the  new  Old  South  Meeting-house  ;  the  last  service,  as  has  been 
said,  was  in  the  Columbus  Avenue  Universalist  Church. 

Until  recent  years  considerable  interest  was  shown  not  only  in 
the  ceremonies  incident  to  Election  day,  but  in  the  "  spoken  word  " 
itself.  We  find  several  references  to  a  "  vast  assembly ;  "  and  as 
far  back  as  1673  Oakes  speaks  of  "  this  great  Assembly  (so  con- 

1  By  the  Charter  of  1691  the  last  Wednesday  of  May  was  established  "  Elec- 
tion-day," and  a  little  later  the  Artillery  election-day  was  established.  —  Memo- 
rial History  of  Boston,  ii.  247. 

2  Memorial  History  of  Boston,  i.  119,  note. 

3  Lechford's  "  Plain  Dealing  "  (Trumbull's  edition),  p.  64. 

<  "  And  that  desolating  fike  in  our  Metropolis,  laying  so  much  of  our  Glory 
in  Ashes,  destroying  so  many  goodly  Edifices,  turning  us  out  of  doors,  where 
these  Solemnities  have  been  so  many  years  formerly  Celebrated." —  Cheever's 
Election  Sermon,  1712,  p.  41. 


THE   MASSACHUSETTS    ELECTION    SERMONS.  63 

siderable  as  to  the  quality  and  publick  capacity,  as  well  as  numer- 
ousness  of  the  Auditors)."  ^  There  was,  too,  at  times  a  listlessness 
which  is  sometimes  observable  at  occasions  of  a  public  and  official 
character.  This  inference  may  at  least  be  di-awn  from  Stillman's 
sermon  in  1779,  in  the  course  of  which  he  almost  snappishly  re- 
marks :  "■  Had  this  sentence  been  duly  attended  to  at  the  time  the 
sermon  was  delivered."  ^ 

In  the  last  century,  the  legislators,  rather  than  be  deprived  of  a 
sermon,  used  sometimes  to  attend  the  regular  Thursday,  or  Fifth-day, 
Lectures,  —  a  series  almost  as  ancient  as  the  Election  Sermons,  and 
discontinued  in  1833.^  The  Thursday  Lecture  thus  attended  would 
then  be  considered  as  an  Election  Sermon.  Cases  of  this  kind  are 
John  Webb's  sermon,  11  February,  1730-31,  and  Thomas  Fox- 
croft's,  23  November,  1727.* 

In  addition  to  the  Election  Sermon,  the  Artillery  Election  Ser- 
mon, which  is  still  preached,  and  the  Thursday  Lecture,  there  was 
the  Convention  Sermon,  —  an  interesting  custom  wliich  is  now  ob- 
served, and  which  took  its  rise  in  the  ceremonies  of  Election-day. 
The  Rev.  Alexander  McKenzie  has  explained  the  origin  of  the 
Convention  Sermon,  which  seems  to  have  some  connection  with 
the  present  subject.^ 

The  preaching  of  Election  Sermons  was  not  confined  to  Massa- 
chusetts, though,  as  the  Rev.  Albert  Barnes  remarks,  "  The  cus- 
tom, so  far  as  we  know,  is  peculiar  to  New  England." 

While  the  Plymouth  Colony  maintained  a  distinct  government. 
Election  Sermons  were  delivered  there  ;  but  I  will  not  now  attempt 
to  describe  them. 

In  Connecticut  the  Sermons  were  preached  during  a  period  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty-six  years,  beginning  in  1674  and  ending  in 

1  Oakes's  Election  Sermon  for  1673,  p.  24. 

2  Stillman's  Election  Sermon  for  1779,  p.  20,  note. 

*  See  Xatlianiel  L.  Frothingham's  "  The  Shade  of  the  Past,"  Boston,  1833. 

*  In  connection  with  these  extra  sermons,  Dr.  George  H.  Moore  has  called 
attention  to  the  fact  that  there  were  generally  two  or  more  sessions,  but  not 
more  than  eight  instances  during  the  whole  Provincial  period  of  a  second 
Assejiibly  in  one  political  year. 

^  Memorial  History  of  Boston,  ii.  223. 


64  THE  MASSACHUSETTS    ELECTION   SERMONS. 

1830.  In  Chauncey  Lee's  Connecticut  Election  Sermon  for  1813 
an  account  of  this  extensive  series  may  be  found.^ 

The  first  Election  Sermon  in  New  Hampshire  was  delivered  by 
Samuel  McClintoek  in  1784;  the  last  one  was  by  Nathan  Lord 
in  1831.     No  sermons  were  preached  in  1793  or  1795.^ 

In  1778  the  custom  was  begun  in  A'^ermont  by  Peter  Bowers. 
There  were  no  sermons  for  1790,  1800,  and  1831;  but  in  1831 
Warren  Skinner  preached  the  last  regular  Vermont  Election  Ser- 
mon. In  1856  an  attempt  was  made  to  revive  the  custom,  which 
continued  for  tln-ee  years,  from  1856  to  1858.^ 

No  set  of  the  Massachusetts  Sermons  exists  which  can  be  called 
complete,  —  that  is,  which  contains  all  those  known  to  have  been 
published.  The  best  collection  is  in  the  Library  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Historical  Society.  It  contains  all  but  two,  —  those  for  1696 
and  1699.  Of  these  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Green,  the  Librarian  of  the 
Society,  owns  a  copy  of  the  sermon  for  1699,  by  Increase  Mather. 
Of  the  other,  that  for  1696,  a  copy  is  in  possession  of  the  Amer- 
ican Antiquarian  Society  at  Worcester,  and  another  in  the  Boston 
Public  Library.  The  Historical  Society  began  early  to  strengthen 
itself  in  tliis  important  branch  of  the  literature  of  the  State,  for  in 
1809  it  was  proposed  "  that  Dr.  Eliot,  Mr.  Alden,  and  Mr.  McKean 
be  a  committee  to  prepare  lists  of  preachers  on  the  General  Elec- 
tion, Artillery  Election,  and  Convention,  marking  such  of  the 
sermons  as  the  Society  possess,  which  they  shall  endeavor  to  have 
inserted  as  appendices  to  the  next  sermons  on  those  occasions."  ^ 
In  1794  only  twenty-one  of  those  who  preached  before  1700  were 
known,  and  it  was  then  thought  that  there  was  no  sermon  in  1721 
on  account  of  small-pox. 

To  the  assiduity  of  Dr.  John  Pierce  is  due  the  best  part  of  the 

1  A  complete  list,  compiled  by  Ralph  D.  Smyth,  is  in  the  New  England  His- 
torical and  Genealogical  Register  for  April,  1892,  xlvi.  123. 

2  A  complete  list  of  the  New-Hampshire  Election  Sermons  is  in  the  Con- 
gregational Quarterly  for  July,  1808,  x.  2 10 ;  and  an  earlier  list  is  in  William 
AUen's  Sermon  for  1818. 

3  An  account  of  the  Vermont  discourses  is  in  the  Historical  Magazine 
for  March,  1868  (New  Series,  iii.  175).  An  earlier  account,  in  the  Congrega- 
tional Quarterly  for  April,  1867  (ix.  187),  was  reprinted  from  the  Vermont 
Record.  Both  articles  are  signed  P.  H.  W.,  the  initials,  doubtless,  of  Pliny  H. 
White. 

*  Massachusetts  Historical  Society's  Proceedings,  for  May,  1809,  i.  213. 


THE  aiASSACHUSETTS  ELECTION   SERMONS.  65 

Society's  collection.  In  September,  1844,  he  stated  that  it  had 
"  been  the  aim  of  the  subscriber  from  an  early  period  of  his  min- 
istry, to  collect  the  printed  Sermons  delivered  at  the  General 
Election  of  Massachusetts,  wliich  as  fast  as  procured,  are  bound  in 
decades."  ^ 

The  next  best  set  of  the  Election  Sermons  is  in  the  Boston  Public 
Library,  if  the  volumes  in  the  Old  South,  or  Prince,  Library  be  con- 
sidered as  part  of  the  collections  of  that  institution.  This  set 
contains  all  printed  sermons,  with  the  exception  of  the  years  1671, 
1695,  1700,  1708,  1711,  1715. 

A  complete  set  from  1747,  with  sixteen  separate  sermons  pre- 
vious to  that  date,  is  in  the  New  York  State  Library.  The  Library 
of  the  Essex  Institute  has  the  sermons  for  the  years  1683,  1698? 
1703-1707,  1710,  1718,  1721,  1724-32,  1743-1884.  The  Andover 
Theological  Seminary  has  the  sermons  from  1745,  with  about  half  a 
dozen  exceptions.  Other  large  libraries  are  so  well  represented 
that  it  is  plain  that  this  branch  of  Americana  does  not  suffer  nesiect. 
Several  private  collectors  have  been  industrious  and  successful.  Dr. 
Pierce  was  the  first  and  most  fortunate.  The  late  George  Brinley 
had  a  finely  preserved  set  running  from  the  year  1793  to  1850,  which 
is  now  in  the  Boston  Public  Library. 

To  be  invited  to  preach  was  always  an  honor ;  several  preachers 
were  asked  on  more  than  one  occasion.  Thomas  Shepard  (the  hist), 
Jonathan  Mitchel,  Thomas  Cobbett,  Samuel  Willard,  Joshua  Moody, 
Benjamin  Colman,  Samuel  Cooper,  and  James  Walker,  each 
preached  twice ;  Richard  Mather,  John  Norton,  and  Samuel  Torrey, 
each  tlu-ee  times;  Increase  and  Cotton  Mather,  each  four  times. 
Some  of  the  earliest  preachers  may  have  officiated  oftener.  The 
three  Mathers  preached  over  four  per  cent  of  the  whole  two  hundred 
and  fifty-six  sermons.  It  may  be  interesting  to  notice  that  Elec- 
tion Preachers  were  long  lived.  Jolm  Pierce  was  the  longest 
graduated  at  the  time  of  his  preaching,  —  that  is,  fifty-six  yems ; 
Samuel  Cheever  was  also  a  graduate  of  fifty-six  years,  and  James 
Walker  of  forty-nine  years.  Eighteen  had  been  out  of  college  for 
forty  years  or  more  when  they  preached. 

It  may  be  observed  that  Jonathan  Mitchel,  Cotton  INIather, 
Joseph  Belcher,  and  William  Allen  preached  eleven  years  aftei 

^  Massachusetts  Historical  Society's  Proceedings,  ii.  293,  294. 


66  THE  IVIASSACHXJSETTS   ELECTION   SERMONS. 

graduation;  Jonathan  Mayhew,  William  B.  Sprague,  and  John 
W.  Yeomans,  ten  years  after ;  Charles  E.  Grinnell,  nine  years 
after ;  and  James  L.  Hill,  seven  years  after.  Dr.  Pierce  gives 
twenty-eight  and  one  half  years  as  the  average  time  of  delivery 
after  graduation  down  to  the  year  1849. 

From  1634  to  1879  one  hundred  and  forty-tlu'ee  of  the  preachers 
were  Harvard  graduates ;  there  being  one  period,  between  1681 
and  1786,  when  only  alumni  of  that  college  received  the  honor. 
There  were  eight  graduates  of  Cambridge  University ;  five  of  Ox- 
ford ;  eleven  of  Yale ;  nine  of  Dartmouth  College  ;  four  of  Williams  ; 
three  of  Amherst ;  two  each  of  Bowdoin,  Brown  University,  and 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania;  one  each  of  Columbia,  Iowa,  Miami, 
Middlebury,  Trinity,  Union,  University  of  New  York,  and  Wes- 
leyan.  Of  non-graduates  there  were  only  twenty,  and  of  these, 
fourteen  were  in  the  present  century. 

Five  of  the  preachers  went  to  college  but  did  not  graduate, 
namely :  Richard  Mather,  Thomas  Cobbett,  and  Jolin  Oxenbridge, 
to  Oxford ;  Samuel  Torrey  and  William  Brimsmead,  to  Harvard. 

In  regard  to  the  various  denominations  to  wliich  the  preachers 
belonged,  Dr.  Pierce  gives  statistics ;  but  inasmuch  as  he  put  down 
all  Trinitarians  and  Unitarians  as  Congregationalists,  I  have  not 
made  use  of  his  results. 

No  Roman  Catholic  clergyman  seems  to  have  taken  part  in  the 
ceremonies  of  Election-day ;  it  is  worthy  of  note,  however,  that  in 
1791  Bishop  Jolui  Carroll  returned  thanks  at  the  Artillery  Elec- 
tion dinner.^ 

Lists  of  Election  Preachers  were  printed  as  follows :  in  Samuel 
Deane's  sermon  for  1794,  giving  full  name,  residence,  and  text ;  in 
David  Osgood's  for  1809,  and  in  Andi-ew  Bigelow's  for  1836,  both 
giving  full  name,  place,  text,  and  size ;  in  John  Pierce's  for  1849, 
and  in  Alonzo  H.  Quint's  for  1866,  both  giving  full  name,  place, 
text.  Alma  Mater,  and  date  of  graduation.  The  fullest  as  well  as 
latest  list  of  the  jDreachers  of  these  Sermons,  however,  giving  year, 
full  name,  residence,  text.  Alma  Mater,  and  date  of  graduation, 
was  compiled  by  Mr.  Henry  H.  Edes,  and  published  in  an  appendix 
to  Mr.  Grinnell's  Sermon.  This  list  ends  in  1871.  The  following 
list  prepared  upon  the  same  plan,  completes  the  series :  — 

1  American  Museum,  June,  1791,  ix.  App.  iii.  p.  43. 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION   SEEMONS. 


67 


Year. 

Pbeacher. 

Residence. 

Text. 

Alma  Matee. 

1872 

Andrew  Preston  Peabody 

Cambridge. 

Exodus  XX.  15. 

Harvard  Coll.    1826. 

1873 

George  Claude  Lorimer^  . 

Boston. 

Matt.  V.  17,  18. 

1874 

Kichard  Gleasou  tjreeue  ■^, 

Springfield. 

Jeremiah  ii.  31. 

1875 

Ii^dwin  Cortland  Bolles-^    . 

Salem. 

Luke  vi.  47,  48. 

Trinity  Coll.  1855. 

1876 

Samuel  Wesley  Foljanibe'* 

Maiden. 

1  Kings  viii.  57. 

1877 

Benj.  Franklin  Hamilton  . 

Roxbury. 

Rom.  xiii.  1,  6. 

Amherst  Coll.  1861. 

1878 

James  Langdou  Hill     .     . 

Lynn. 

John  iv.  38. 

Iowa  Coll.  1871. 

1879 

Alexander  McKenzie    .     . 

Cambridge. 

James  iv.  12. 

Harvard  f'oll.    1859. 

1880 

Daniel  VVingate  Waldron 

Boston. 

Deuc.  viii.  2. 

Bowdoin  Coll.  1862. 

1881 

Daniel  Little  Furber    .     . 

Newton. 

I'rov.  xxix.  18. 

Dartmouth  Coll.  1843. 

1882 

Joseph  Foster  Lovering  =  . 

Worcester. 

Ps.  xlvii.  9. 

188.3 

Robert  Khoden  Meredith*' 

Boston. 

Prov.  xiv.  34. 

1884 

Alonzo  Ames  Miner  ^  .     . 

Boston. 

Ps.  Ixxxix.  14. 

'  Geoege  Claude  Lorimer,  born  in  Edinburgh,  Scotland,  1838,  took  a  course  of  study  in  Georgetown 
College,  Ky.,  which  gave  him  the  degree  of  LL.D.,  in  1885  ;  he  has  also  received  the  degree  of  D.D.  from 
Bethel  College. 

2  Richard  Gleason  Greene,  a  graduate  at  Andover  Theological  Seminary,  1853  :  received  the  degree 
of  A.M.  from  Yale,  1873. 

3  Edwin  Cortland  Bollbs.  The  middle  name  of  Mr.  Holies  is  variously  given  as  Cortlandt  and 
Courtland.  I  follow  the  spelling  found  in  the  Quinquennial  Catalogue  of  Trinity  College,  Hartford, 
Conn. 

■»  Samuel  Wesley  Foljambe,  bom  in  Leeds,  England,  received  a  liberal  education  ;  was  first  a  Metho- 
dist, afterward.s  a  Baptist,  preacher.  Received  the  degree  of  A.M.  from  Graudville  College,  Columbus, 
Ohio,  and  of  D.D.  from  Central  University,  Bella,  Iowa. 

''•  Joseph  Fo.stbr  Lovering,  born  in  Kingston,  Mass.,  18  Aug.  1835  ;  was  in  the  Harvard  College  class 
of  185G,  but  did  not  graduate  ;  and  spent  one  year  in  the  Divinity  School  at  Cambridge.  He  was  subse- 
quently at  Meadville,  Pa. 

6  Robert  Rhoden  Meredith,  born  in  Ireland,  1838,  received  the  degree  of  A.M.  from  Wesleyan,  1875  • 
and  of  D.D.  from  Dartmouth,  1.882. 

'  Alonzo  Ames  Miner,  President  of  Tufts  College,  1862-1875 ;  received  the  degree  of  A.M.  from  Tufts, 
1861 ;  of  S.T.D.,  from  Harvard,  1863  ;  and  of  LL.D.  from  Tufts,  1875. 


It  would  perhaps  have  been  a  gain  to  this  paper  to  have  tabu- 
lated many  isolated  bibliograpliical  data;  in  fact  it  would  have 
been  agreeable  to  my  plan  to  give  a  complete  bibliography  of  the 
sermons,  —  if  not  of  the  entire  series,  at  least  of  those  delivered  in 
the  seventeenth  century.  Such  expansion,  however,  has  not  seemed 
advisable  in  view  of  the  fact  that  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Green  gives  full 
and  accurate  titles  of  the  earlier  sermons  in  his  recent  and  valuable 
List  of  Early  American  Imprints  belonging  to  the  Library  of  the 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society.^ 

Mr.  Edes's  list  still  remains,  after  nearly  twenty-five  years,  a 
sound  and  useful  piece  of  work.  My  supplementary  list  for  1872  to 
1884  inclusive,  and  the  following  tabulations  for  years  in  which  no 
sermons  were  preached,  and  for  years  in  which  sermons  were 
preached  and  not  printed,  will,  I  trust,  furnish  all  that  is  essential 

1  This  List  appeared  while  Mr.  Swift's  paper  was  passing  througli  the  press. 
See  2  Massachusetts  Historical  Society's  Proceedings  for  February,  1895,  ix. 
410  et  seq. 


68 


THE   MASSACHUSETTS   ELECTION    SERMONS. 


to  be  added.  Some  of  the  sermons  have  passed  to  the  honor  of 
more  than  one  edition;  such  cases  I  have  sought  to  notice  in 
passing. 

Years  in  which  no  Sermons  were  Preached. 

1635,  1636,  1639,  1640,  1642,   1647,  1650-1655,   1662,   1687,  1688, 
1691,  1752,  1764. 

Sermons  P*reached  but  not  known  to  have  been  Printed. 


1634. 

John  Cotton. 

1664. 

Richard  Mather. 

1637. 

Thomas  Shepard. 

1665. 

John  Russell. 

1638. 

Thomas  Shepard. 

1666. 

Thomas  Cobbett. 

1641. 

Nathaniel  Ward. 

1669. 

John  Davenport. 

1643. 

Ezekiel  Rogers. 

1675. 

Joshua  Moody. 

1644. 

Richard  Mather. 

1678. 

Samuel  Phillips. 

1645. 

John  Norton. 

1680. 

Edward  Bulkley. 

1646. 

Edward  Norris. 

1681. 

William  Brimsmead. 

1648. 

Zeehariah  Symmes. 

1684. 

John  Hale. 

1649. 

Thomas  Cobbett. 

1686. 

Michael  Wigglesworth. 

1656. 

Charles  Chaunc3\ 

1692. 

Joshua  Moody. 

1657. 

John  Norton. 

1697. 

John  Dan  forth. 

1658. 

Jonathan  Mitchel. 

1713. 

Samuel  Treat. 

1659. 

John  Eliot. 

1717. 

Roland  Cotton. 

1660. 

Richard  Mather. 

1875. 

Edwin  C.  Bolles. 

Of  these,  liowever,  Mather  in  1644,  Cobbett  in  1649,  Moody  in 
1675,  Hale  in  1684,  Wigglesworth  in  1686,  Treat  in  1713,  Cotton 
in  1717,  and  Bolles  in  1875  were  asked  by  the  Court  to  furnish 
a  copy  for  the  press.  Shepard's  for  1638  exists  in  outline  as  else- 
where described ;  Richard  Mather's  for  1660  was  quoted  by  Mitchel 
seven  years  later  as  if  printed;  the  Magnalia  speaks  of  Daven- 
port's for  1669  as  "  afterwards  published ; "  while  Moody's  for 
1692  is  in  Haven's  list.  These  and  other  of  the  missing  sermons 
have  been  touched  upon  more  fully  in  due  order  throughout  the 
foregoing  pages  of  this  list.  >     ( 


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